Interlaken – part 2

Continuing with our long weekend in Interlaken …

Interlaken’s hotels are expensive and they are often fully booked. Our hotel is BeauSite located in the next town – Unterseen.

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It is a family-owned hotel which has a nice little seating area in front and ample parking spaces. It was impossible to find parking in Interlaken … we tried.

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Unterseen is really about 5-10 minutes walk from Interlaken’s main drag – Höheweg – and just because it is situated across the river Aare – there is hardly any tourists.

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The River Aare connects Lake Thun and Lake Brienz – the “inter” part of Interlaken.

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We joined a free walking tour and the guide took us treking across the river and up onto a trail just above the town. Poor Sue, her feet suffered for not having the right shoes.

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The trail offered wonderful views of Interlaken – it was not so far up where everything appears tiny. One can just see Lake Thun in a distance
in the above photo – looking west – just when sun was setting.

Looking just across town – the backs of the old grand hotels on Höheweg are visible in the middle.

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And looking east,  Höhematte (the big lawn in the center of town) is in the foreground (of the photo below).

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Our little tour looped into Unterseen via a riverside walk before crossing the Aare and then turning back into the town center.


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So peaceful.

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Our walk around town took us near the funicular that connects Interlaken with the nearest summit – Harderkulm at 1323 meters (4341 feet) – which affords one a bird’s eye view of the town. Didn’t go there, we were quite happy with what we saw already.

interlaken-29Near the funicular station is a small zoo – better described as a fenced-off area – where a few mountain sheep/goat is kept.  What puzzled me was the height of the huts – are there two floors inside ?

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As expected, the town is full of restaurants including many ethnic restaurants – for the home-sick tourists who cannot deal with daily European meals.  Well, we had a Korean dinner one night (Sue cannot resist it) and a generic “middle-eastern” on another. The best dinner we had was Italian at Citta Vecchia just down the street from our hotel – simple risotto con porcini and pasta alla vongole – it tasted great!  It is one of those mythical little Italian restaurants which every couple knows at least one.

interlaken-20 Another restaurant that was recommended to us by our guide was the “Bear” which serves traditional Swiss fare and is also just down the street. We did not have a chance to try it and we avoided all the steak places and continental restaurants in the town center.

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Our hotel room has a direct view of the famous Jungfrau – 4158 meters (13,641 feet).  But on the first day, visibility is zero.

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On the last day – the day we went up there, the weather was cooperating.

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More pictures on our trip up Jungfrau to come …

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