The Trip That Keeps Growing: Interlaken and Grindelwald -- The Bernese Oberland

Interlaken and Grindelwald – The Bernese Oberland

Today is our last day in Lucerne. We have booked a full day’s tour to Interlaken and Grindelwald, two resort cities in the scenic mountain region of the Bernese Oberland Alps. Today the rain that all the weather channels we had looked at before coming to Switzerland said would be here all week finally arrived. The drive up to Interlaken was beautiful – lush green meadows with cows and sheep at the bottom of stone mountains with just a hint of snow on their tops. Just what you would expect from the land of Heidi. Our first stop was Interlaken, a resort city with lots of summer outdoor activities. Unfortunately, neither time nor the weather allowed us to pursue any of these activities. Most of the people on this tour were actually going on the cog railway trip up the Jungfrau, so the 6 of us that were left were dropped off in Interlaken and told we would be picked up by bus in 1 ½ hours and taken to Grindelwald. We wandered down the main street (and only street) of the town that was loaded with hotels and shops begging for you to enter. After walking the length of the street, we found a nice little café where we enjoyed a delicious cup of hot chocolate and waited for the bus. Although I’m sure Interlaken is a beautiful place to visit in the summer, on a cold, rainy day there wasn’t much to do unless you are into shopping or if you prefer to spend your time in Hooters!

Once the bus picked us up, it was a short 20 minute ride to Grindelwald, known as “Glacier Village” because of the number of glaciers in this area. It is located at the base of Mt. Eiger, one of the three famous Alp Mountains in this area – Eiger, Monch, and the tallest mountain in Europe – Jungfrau. Although high by European standards – 11,400’ above sea level, it does not compare to the 14ers we have in Colorado. As expected, Grindelwald is also a ski resort, although this is their downtime between summer and winter, so many of the shops were closed. The other four on this tour with us, all from San Francisco, wanted to take the gondola up First (pronounced Fierce-t). Today was the last day it was operating so we decided to tag along. As with everything else in Switzerland, this was also expensive – $60 per person/roundtrip. The trip up took 30 minutes – there are three legs to this trip and you could get off at any one of the tree stops. We elected to go all the way to the top, but by the time we got on the second leg, it was snowing heavily and you could not see anything. It was still snowing when we reached the top, so we decided to eat lunch first and hope for a break in the weather. Luck was with us – by the time we finished eating, the sun was breaking through the clouds and we had spectacular views of the Alps. At the top of the mountain, they have built a grated walkway that leads out over the edge of the mountain looking down at the base below. I walked out to take some pictures – of course, Bill stayed firmly planted on the outside deck.

The trip down on the gondola was much nicer that the trip up. The weather had broken and we had good views of the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the windows on the gondola were streaked with raindrops, so the only things you see on my pictures are raindrops. They could have used someone with a squeegee to clean off the windows. Once down the mountain, we had a clear view of Mt. Eiger, however the Jungfrau was hidden behind Eiger and you couldn’t see it. By the time we got down, it was cold and beginning to rain again, so we found another nice café and had hot chocolate and a piece of apple cake (or pie as we would call it) and waited for our bus to pick us up and take us back to Lucerne. The weather could have been better but we saw some incredible views of the snow-covered Alps. Now it was time to return to the hotel and pack for our trip to Bern tomorrow.