Thursday 13th June

Today we caught the bus along the north eastern side of the lake to our last castle Schloss Oberhofen, about 5km from Thun. It is an extraordinary place in that it has undergone so many changes since the original keep was constructed in the 13th century. After a succession of owners including a Russian Grand Duchess in the 19th century, it was sold to an American lawyer in 1940 who attempted to make it more of a 'Fairy castle' with mixed success.

In comparison with the 2 Thunersee castles we had seen before it did not compare too well but it made some interesting displays illustrating the back stairs life of servants & governesses in the castle in the early 20th century, which we had seen previously in English country houses. It did however have some very fine formal gardens & the mixture of rooms was very eclectic. In the top room of the keep the owner had decorated it as a middle eastern smoking room which seemed quite bizarre as access was though a set of long steep staircases.

Returning from the schloss we visited a lovely old church & then caught the bus back to Thun, where Jane packed & d*** vacuumed before we went out for dinner.

Friday 14th June

Up at 4.30 to have breakfast & catch the train to Basel for our flight to Baku via Istanbul.

Arrived at the Basel airport by train & bus & had a delayed flight to Istanbul followed by another one on to Baku. Luckily the 2nd plane had more space. On arrival we were met & driven for about 40 minutes to our hotel & were in bed by midnight local time.

The drive in shook us as the place is full of extraordinary, very recently constructed buildings ranging from office blocks to public buildings & the roads were busy with traffic in all directions.