Another pressure day of travel, interchanges and the associated stresses of needing everyone and everything in this modern world of ours to work seamlessly, otherwise it all falls apart. Early breakfast in the hotel was the shortest leg as the dining room was 2 steps away from our smelly room. There was a common theme in all Spanish hotels in that they really should spend the effort to flush their pipes occasionally. There's definitely a market for Buildings Colonoscopy services here. The complex drive back to Bilbao AP was seamless, thanks to Waze. It's still steamy and foggy here with some very impressive nearby hills obscured by it all. Bilbao is a destination all by itself which we are completely ignoring in order to ride a small cog railway elsewhere. So the Guggenheim remains unseen and unsighted, poor thing.
Last stop in Spain and we finally get a decent coffee and tea at the AP. Has something to do with knowing the key words apparently. The SwissAir hop to Zurich AP was a nice plane and we got free food. Not bad for an hour in the air. All our previous flights this trip have had screaming kids, this one was replaced with a nonstop cougher sitting right behind us. If we catch it we'll know where it came from. The stress of plane to train was totally unfounded as the second is placed directly underneath the first. See...this is how efficient airports are designed, built and run. Once again it drives home how backwards our little home town is. For the connecting train your Blogger had astutely reserved seats, unbeknownst it was in the "family" carriage, which has a really cool playground to keep the little tykes amused. Yes, on a train, they have a kids playground. Return of the screaming children. Seems that no matter how much lattitude you give 'em it will always end up in tantrums. We weren't that concerned by the whole situation, was pretty funny actually, however can guarantee the captured video of the passing country will have the audio removed. Some got off at Bern (yay), and were promtly replaced with a couple more who could only communicate by screaming (boo). The very fast double decker beast in which we were in then headed to Interlaken and the majestic Alps came into view. Prior to this, Switzerland looks like any other modern country (suburbs, roads, rivers, well tamed countryside etc. etc.), now we could start to see what all the fuss is about.
Up the higher reaches one can actually see glaciers, from down below, from the train. Back home you may see a snow capped mountain in the distance in winter. Here at the end of summer (it was 31degrees here in the valley below today) up there it's so cold everything is still frozen, and you can see it. It's wierd because it looks so close, but it can't be. Seriously high mountains. No wonder no-one could ever invade these country, the hills are simply too high to sneak around the back and hit 'em from behind.
The views from the VFDD beast as it wound its way along the shoreline of the vast lake were fabulous. Locals were sunning themselves on waters edge, some were swimming in it, and upon arrival the sky was full of paragliders gliders, slowly riding the warm updrafts created by the valley below and the sheer cliffs surrounding them, eventually circling their way down to softly touch on the grassy field next to the olde town.
So it was a beautiful warm balmy afternoon, with the threat of thunderstorms looming no-one seemed too concerned.
After a wander around town, soaking up all this ambiance, whilst trying to stop automatically using Spanish polite words (e.g. saying "grassyarse" here could possibly be taken as an insult...even if close to the truth) we briefly parted ways so blogger could go back to the room and remotely capture the stormy sunset whilst non-blogger secured and held down a table under an umbrella outside one of the many restaurants. Good food at exorbitant prices. Not unexpected though as this really is upper first world civilization. i.e. they have nuclear power, a haldron collider, their own currency in the middle of the EU whilst holding all of the world's wealth in banks thst no-one can touch because they also provide security at the Vatican. They also serve nice free rolls on their national airline. It's the little things that count in the end.
Our room is on the fourth floor of an establishment that was probably the high end of luxury back in the 1920's. Whilst some modifications have been undertaken since (e.g. electrical power outlets in the rooms and a moden lift to get to them) pretty much everything else is the same. It's a good quality towel that can contune to be reused after all that time..
So there you have it... Interlaken, surrounded by volumous peaks, glacial coloured waters running through the heart of it and a whole lot of people from all over the world sharing the ambiance with the locals on a warm, autumn day.
What could possibly go wrong.
1 comment:
Enjoy!
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