Interlaken, Switzerland

September 1st - 4th

Interlaken, Switzerland

Interlaken is found in the centre of Switzerland, located in the middle of the Swiss Alps between two gorgeous turquoise lakes.  If that is not enough to make you want to travel there, then perhaps the delicious Swiss chocolate will! yum!  We have eaten way too much of it!  But we hope that you love Interlaken, because we did!  There may be a lot of pictures but we seriously tried to limit them...it is just so gorgeous!

Relaxing on the train ride to Interlaken

Some of the scenic views on the train ride

Since the prices were so high in Switzerland, this was the only country that we have found that staying in a hostel as two people has been more affordable than a hotel room.  In fact, the hotels were insanely priced and hostels was all that we could afford with our 2 month travel budget!

Backpacker's Villa - besides some loud snoring people in our room, the hostel was great with breakfast, 2 huge kitchens, ping pong table, and free cappuccinos & laundry with the coins they gave us!!

The three days previous to our arrival in Interlaken it had been raining, but on our first evening the clouds started to clear and the blue skies appeared with snowy alp peaks in the distance!

The view from outside of our hostel!

A very popular thing to do in the Swiss Alps is to go paragliding! You spend about 30 mins in the air, tandem with an instructor, and the landing field was right outside of our hostel.  So from the time we woke up in the morning until dark there was a constant flow of people paragliding in the sky.  We would have loved to do it, but instead we decided that we would spend the next day in the mountains!

Sunday September 2nd

We were lucky to have blue skies today! Our plan for the day was to hike in the Swiss Alps!  

This picture shows the strenuous walk we had to take in Interlaken on the way to the train station to take a train to Lauterbrunnen and then a gondola ride up to Grutschalp, which is 4875 feet above sea level, for a 3 hour hike to Murren and back down to Interlaken!  A day full of adventure!

We arrive in Lauterbrunnen and Steven insists on doing his morning workout before the hike!

Lauterbrunnen

We haven't even started hiking yet and we are in awe of all the sites around us!

Riding up the Gondola

Views from the Gondola

We made it to Grutschalp!  If only we started our hike in Murren it would not have been all UP hill hiking!

Taking in the amazing views of Grutschalp once we get off of the gondola.

What a perfect day to hike!  Off we go!

The hike we chose was the Mountain View Trail where we hiked through open fields and was given amazing views of three of the major mountain peaks in this region, Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger.  The hillside was lush and green with traditional Swiss houses built on the mountain side.  We felt like we were in the Sound of Music, and Jenna would begin to sign the songs in the mountain!

A few views along the hike!

We were about halfway through our hike at this point and it was ALL uphill so far!  It did not matter though because we were loving and embracing every moment of our surroundings!

Steven pretending he is a cow, talking a drink from his trough.

COWS!!!! More cow bell!!!  You could always hear the cow bells in the distance.

Taking the reigns!

The Swiss strips we followed for our hike

SNOW!!

SNOW! We hiked so high we found snow! We were warned before our hike that we should probably be wearing appropriate hiking boots for the trail, but we decided we were hardcore and Jenna hiked in her strapped sandals and Steven in his urban walking shoes!  Despite the snow, areas of mud and a lot of cow dung on the trail, our footwear did not fail us!

The clouds began to roll in and our nicely positioned viewpoint bench was not 100% visibility!

Jenna going x-stream...nice jump!

Sheep and a waterfall high up in the mountains!

Which way should we go?!  The cows were not as helpful as they might look!

Almost at our destination in Murren, beginning to see a little more civilization.  

A few waterfalls on the way back down to Lauterbrunnen...we could not get over how tall these waterfalls were, plus there were so many all along one major bluff.

Back in Interlaken, taking in the cute Swiss streets

On our trip we have shopped at a lot of grocery stores, but wanted to make note of a few things that are different from Canada.  As we are here longer we start to see these things as normal, but were very shocked by them in the beginning.  For example, this picture shows the mayonnaise and mustard shelf...all in tubes that look like toothpaste!  Also, no grocery stores in Europe refrigerate their milk or eggs!  Peanut butter is about 5 euros for a tiny jar, but you can buy a massive jar of Nutella for like 4 euros!

A multitude of paragliding.

Relaxing with a cappuccino and some Swiss chocolate!!

Well Interlaken was amazing for us!  It would be a must see if you were ever to travel to Switzerland!  Next we head out to Lucern, Switzerland.

Architectural Highlight

An auditorium we discovered in Interlaken.  The building is clad in a reflective metal...thereby taking on the quality of its surroundings. A chameleon of sorts.