At present we are living in an non-Catholic country. However, we get the Catholic holidays off. In May this year that means Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Monday. And nothing is open. The ironic thing is that in France, a Catholic country me thinks, everything is open. The boys had three days off from school, so I wanted to take the long weekend and get out of Dodge. Unfortunately, our town decided to have a Beer Festival. Do I drink beer? No. But my husband does. He wanted to go, so that precluded us from staying gone. Now if you go to this festival during the day, you will see very lovely people. We hit it at night. Let me tell you, my husband wearing his sleeveless t and gym shorts - an outfit I have seen him doing yard work in - classed up the joint. Needless to say, we did not stay long nor return. Could we have gone away? In hindsight, yes. But we went on a day trip only. Where did we go? Interlaken.
Now Jen, why have the title "Rock of Ages" if you went to Interlaken? Shouldn't it be "Michael Rode The Boat Ashore" or something like that? As an aside, I used to think the title was "My Goat Oared The Boat Ashore." Easy to confuse it, but why would a goat be oaring a boat? It doesn't have hands. I am a woman, I am illogical. Back to topic at hand (hoof). Haha! I mean Interlaken actually means between two lakes right? Well you are correct. However, we went to the start of the Bernese Alps, a very beautiful countryside which we will have to visit again. There is a lot of hiking and gondola rides and fun stuff to do. And besides, one of the highest places in the Alps, called the "Top of Europe" is located here. And since the Alps are millions of years old...Rock Of Ages. Yes my mind knows no bounds of crazy.
Interlaken is very lovely and only a couple hours away. Not much to do there itself, but a great jumping off point for trekking through to better locations. If you like to take your life in your hands, you can paraglide off the mountain. No, thank you. There is also river rafting and zip lines and a toboggan ride down the mountain. See? We have to go back. We could not fit everything in. Plus we want to go to Grindelwald and Jungfrau, the "Top Of Europe" and go to where they filmed James Bond's "His Majesty's Secret Service." Though reputedly the worst Bond movie before any by Timothy Dalton, I still want to see it. So we will be back (please say like The Terminator.)
What did we see there then? Well we took a funicular up the mountain, really a hill compared to the others around us, and hit the top of Harder Kulm. It is a platform that overlooks Interlaken in the valley. Ricardo took a 360 panoramic which I did not post, but very cool. Then we hiked down again. Ride up? 10 minutes. Hike down? 1 hour 20 minutes. My calves are still hurting from that hike. Very steep at parts, flat at others, but the boys were troopers and we had loads of fun.
After a yummy packed lunch we hit the St. Beatus Caves. As legend has it, in the 6th century St. Beatus killed the dragon that lived in the cave and moved in himself. The ultimate in eviction notices I guess. The cave system is perpetually 10 degrees celsius (48F), very comfy after a hot trek. It was formed over millions of years by an underground river. Hence "Rock of Ages," again. The Stalactites and stalagmites were really neat. Some rock formations made skull faces and creepy things. We even saw the "Scream" face. At times I felt like were in "The Goonies" (my favorite movie) and being chased by the Fortelli's. Luckily, we did not need any pinchers apparel, pinches of peril? Whatever they were. We had hand rails and stairs. Amazing what underground rivers can create, right?
I took loads of pictures and too many according to my child. But I did not want to miss anything. This place is tops for visiting. Although no one taller than 6 feet should go into the caves or you will be stooping the whole time. Swiss people are notoriously average in height.
We had a great day. Can't wait to go back and see more things!
Peace Out!
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