Day 22: Colmar to Lauterbrunnen

Another quick update so y'all can tell where we're at. I'll have more extensive updates when I get a few more minutes. We left Paris on Tuesday, the 21^st and went to Colmar in the southeast corner of France, right where Germany, France and Switzerland all meet. This is a holiday town for both French and German tourists.

On Wednesday, the 22^nd we took several trains down to the Jungfrau region of Switzerland in the Alps. The train to Basel Switzerland left at 10:24, so we had time for a leisurely breakfast at the hotel (a really complete, nice, European-style buffet), checked out, and picked up our train with no problem.

The trains from France end right at the border. You get off the train, walk across the border, past a deserted immigration and passport checking area and into the Swiss train station. We found the Swiss train to Interlaken with no problem. It seems like the trains in each country have their own distinctive characteristics; the Swiss train we got on was ultra-modern and very clean.

We got to Interlaken by 1:30. It was a beautiful sunny day with spectacular view of the lake, and, as we approached Interlaken, of the snowy peaks of the Jungfrou, Monch, and Eiger peaks. Apparently it's quite common to come to this region of Switzerland and find the mountains completely invisible, engulfed in clouds and fog. While there were some clouds, the sky was a brilliant blue and all three peaks were clearly visible. It's hard to take pictures, though, since the contrast between the brilliand snowy peaks and the surrounding countryside is so great that the peaks seem to "wash out". This is one time that I think that regular old film might be better than digital. (But maybe a more expensive digital camera would work better.)

At Interlaken we needed to catch a private train (part of the Jungfraubahn line) up to our hotel in the town of Lauterbrunnen in the Berner Oberland region. Because of our railpass the tickets were only 5 SF each (about 1.2SF per dollar); we got tickets up to Lauterbrunnen and purchased our return tickets for the trip back on Friday at the same time. We also got some Swiss francs from the ATM, since Switzerland, like Hungary, doesn't use the Euro. (It's really kind of confusing comparing prices, since the Swiss france is worth a little less than a dollar, while the Euro is worth a little--or maybe a lot--more.)

We had time to walk around Interlaken for about a half hour before our train, which then took another half hour to travel up the valley to Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen is a really small town, with maybe 20 hotels and restaurants, a small supermarket and some specialty stores. It's still the commercial hub of this region, though; to get to the surrounding villages, like Gimmelwald or Murren, you need to take a cable-car or lift.

The whole town is set into a very steep valley (kind of like Yosemite, but narrower) with a very swift river running down the center, and a single street going through town. We walked through the entire town and found our hotel (the Hotel Staubbach) at the foot of Staubbach falls across from the church. This was the original hotel in the valley, founded in 1866, and it's recently been restored.

When we got to the hotel at 3:00 PM, there was no one at the reception desk, just a note telling us to check our names off the list on the counter, grab our key and head on up to our rooms. (Later at night, Kathy and I walked past the supermarket which was closed, and noticed the boxes of sodas and other merchandise piled on the steps, left unlocked and unprotected after closing. I guess that theft is not a big problem here.)

After we put our luggage in our room, we set off to explore the town, and to get a bite to eat, since we hadn't had a long enough layover in Interlaken for lunch. We found a cafe that was still serving, (unlike Italy where they all closed down in the afternoons), and I had a bowl of soup while Kathy ordered a pizza (which I helped her finish off). It was getting a little hazy by this time as the clouds rolled in (although it was still dry), and Kathy was still feeling pretty sick from the sore throat that started yesterday, so we decided to postpone visiting the upper villages and to do our hiking tommorrow.

Instead of heading off to a lift, we hiked up the little trail right underneath the Staubbach falls above our hotel. There was a tunnel cut into the rocks and we were able to hike back up underneath the falls themselves. Afterwards, we walked past the church, over to the (closed) museum, and took a back trail into town. At the little supermarket we got some laundry soap (actually shower gel, which was easier to pack and transport), some deodorant, a little knife and some chocolate.

Then, we walked across the street to the youth hostel's Internet cafe. They must get a lot of Americans, because all of the machines had US keyboards. Kathy did some emailing, and I picked up my email from my regular account for the first time, and had a chance to delete some of the spam. (The cafe uses coin-operated machines that cost 10 SFr an hour. I can't actually access the machines to get to a USB port, so I can't upload any of my pictures.) You can't believe how much easier having an American keyboard makes using the Internet though. (As you can tell from the length of this post.)

In the dark we walked back to our hotel, and spent the rest of the evening reading and soaking in the large bathtub with plenty of hot water; that's a real luxury over here.