We woke up in Florence this morning and made a quick walk commute to the train station. We went from Florence to Milan to Spiez to Interlaken. Since Interlaken wasn’t totally on our original trip plan, it was a fun surprise to get off the train and not know where we were at all. Oh, also, we’ve entered our fourth language zone. German!
First funny happening: we stopped into the local tourist info office and got a map, bought our return tickets to Zurich, and asked a few other questions. We don’t like to rely on it, but there is a lot of English spoken here. Anyway, we wandered outside and checked out the map. The index on the back has our place of lodging, Balmer’s Tent Village (see Sarah’s post), in map tile H8. We knew it was a bit of a walk, but to our surprise, our map didn’t even include a grid row 8… Hmmm.
We walked back to the tourist info and I showed our confirmation email to the attendant. She laughed and said, ” ahhhh… Tent village. Bigger map for you!” We were then gifted with a book of a map and warned that it was quite a hike. When we asked how long, she told us about 30 minutes. Ha! Long? Fine. We did it twice!
This place is beautiful. We’re surrounded by the alps on all sides and the city has an amazing blue river running through it. We took a nice stroll on their river path and checked out some of the restaurants. Our backpacks were getting heavy, and we were told that once we check in at our lodging, we be given a “tourist card” that would allow us to ride the bus to our lodging. First we have to get to the lodging though. Ha! To celebrate, we walked to the village, got our card, bussed back in, ate dinner, and walked back home.
Dinner, you wonder? Why yes. If you’ve had a Raaclette dinner with Sarah and me, you’ve probably heard my dramatized partially accurate story of what this traditional Swiss meal is. To get our story straight, we ate it tonight! It’s different. Our home version is a cool table grill. The real thing here is a hot plate with expensive cheese melted on potatoes. Delicious, but different!
The food wasn’t the only attraction though. The restaurant was described to us as “traditional Swiss”… And it felt like it! There was singing, a large wooden horn being played, and a lot of hollering. So much fun!
Tomorrow: hiking to Trümmelbach Falls. Check it out here: http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ch/truemmelbach-falls-water-in-a-corset-of-stone.html
Shout out to Aaron Box for urging us to work it into the travel plans! The city has already wowed us, and we’re still in the lowlands!