Interlaken, Switzerland - Sept 2 to 5, 2009

Interlaken... Wow, this was by far the best stop so far. We weren't originally planning to stay here, but we ended up spending 5 nights! Nestled in the heart of the Alps, the scenery couldn't be more beautiful.

The first night we wandered around the small town enjoying the scenery. We were looking for something cheap to do. We stopped by an indoor climbing wall, but they wanted $80 for a 1 hour climbing session! We decided to just continue walking around admiring the Swiss cottage style houses.



Carolina and her love for Japanese gardens ... and we found one!

The next day we checked out more of the town as well as a High Ropes Course. It was awesome!! We made our way through a series of rope obstacle courses slung high into the trees. The place had 7 courses ranging from kid friendly to very challenging. Each one took about 20 to 30 min to navigate through. We weren't expecting it to be so big, so we ended up getting there later than we should have. We skipped the easiest route and didn't have time to do the hardest one! It was 5:50 and the staff wouldn't let us start the last course because the close at 6... We were pretty disappointed but it was still an amazing afternoon!










After the ropes course we went back to the hostel, washed up and went to an open-air theatre where they were telling the famous Swiss story of William Tell (the guy who shot an apple off his son's head with a cross bow). It was a great time even though the entire play was in German and we had to guess what they were saying, haha.

While we were in town the Jungfrau marathon was also taking place. It's a huge event, so every hotel/hostel/bed and breakfast in town seemed completely booked up. In the 5 nights we spent there we ended up staying in 3 different hostels and 4 different rooms because each place only had 1 room left because of last minute cancelations.

The 3rd night we stayed at the Alpin Lodge right along the river. The view from the room was great but unfortunately it rained all day! We tried our best to get some sightseeing in, but it was just too wet. We ended up grabbing a frozen pizza, cooking it back at the hotel and watching a movie on the laptop back in the room. Oh well, we needed a recovery day anyways.

The 4th night we moved to Berber's Herberge. This is the famous youth hostel in the area. We had the most fun here. It was packed with fellow travellers. We met some great people while we were there including a bunch of Aussies that we had a great time with. During the day we went hiking up to Harder Kulm, which is an old building/cafe at the top of the mountain overlooking the valley, lakes and rivers that surround Interlaken. The view was spectacular from the top!





OUCH! Maybe if you tied those shoe laces you wouldn't have wiped out!

Our last day in Interlaken we did a day trip to Lauterbrunnen. It will be in the next post.

We were sad to leave Interlaken. It is the extreme sports centre of Switzerland. There is SkyDiving, Bungee Jumping, Paragliding, Hang Gliding, Ropes Courses and anything else you can imagine. We could have easily blown through the entire trip's budget in a week there! We will definitely return to Interlaken. It would be well worth it to return for a single week with a wallet full of cash.

Look! It's the Dude!! Any bowlers reading the blog will enjoy this I'm sure.

Golden Panoramic Express - Sep 2, 2009

This wasn't a stop in the trip, but we took so many pictures we figured it should get its own post. This is the name of the train route that winds along the base of the Alps from Lucerne to Interlaken. Unfortunately it was cloudy and raining when we make our voyage, but the views were still spectacular:

Zurich, Switzerland - Sept 1, 2009

Instead of spending 3 nights in Zurich, we changed it into a day trip. We already seen some of the sights along the river, but we had to see some more!

We found a free walking tour guide at the tourist information book at the train station. We followed the route and read the captions for each landmark. The city is very beautiful and has a young, vibrate feel to it. The city he business capital of Switzerland.


One of the stops was a large University at the top of the hill overlooking the river.

We continued along and saw the usual sights like churches and statues. We probably didn't give Zurich the time it deserved, but we were happy with our day trip. We ate lunch in a park with a great view and hopped back on the train the Lucerne to cook supper at the hostel.

Lucerne, Switzerland - Aug 30 to 31, 2009

We didn't originally plan on spending much time in Lucerne. It was only going to be a day trip from Zurich. We had been looking for accommodations in Zurich a couple days before we got there, but weren't able to find anything cheap. We decided that when we arrived we would just spend an hour or two walking near the station to find a cheap place. This plan worked well in Munich, but luck in Zurich. The cheapest we could find was a dreadful looking place that was $110 CHF per night!

We ate lunch near the river and started calling a few places in Lucerne. We found a place for almost half the price so we were gone.

We spent 3 nights in Lucerne and it was one of the best stops we made. It was the smallest city we stopped in, I think it was around 12,000 people. The town is built around a gorgeous lake. We spent one day exploring the old town. The hostel gave us a free city guide map with a route that covered all the attractions so we spent the afternoon following it. We stopped by a few churches.

One of the stops was an amazing Lion Monument carved into the natural rock formation. It stands as a tribute the Swiss Guards who died while defending Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution.


We walked along the famous bridge and watertower. Most of the original burned down in 1994, but has since been reconstructed as close to the original specs as possible. Some of the original artwork that lined the bridge was recovered from the fire.


We continued on to what we thought was an old castle, but turned out to be a hotel designed to look like an old palace, haha. (On the hill in the top right corner):



When we finished the tour we grabbed a quick bite to eat back at the hostel then we were off for a Sunset cruise!! Our rail passes gave us free admission on the boatlines along the lake, so we took advantage and hopped on board a 3 hour cruise.

The cruise was amazing! We got to see the beautiful countryside from a different perspective. We watched the sun fall down behind the mountains and continued along beneath the clear sky. On the way back we saw a couple shooting stars (sorry no pictures, haha).








On the 3rd day in Lucerne we took a day trip back to Zurich. That will be covered in the next post.

LUCERNE ESTA.....

PERRON!!!