Friday 7th June

Took the bus to Interlaken & back, about 18k each way, alongside the Thundersee, after paying about $100 for the privilege. This took us both somewhat by surprise but eventually we recovered. The bus was quite crowded & as a bendy- bus on a curly road it was quite an experience.

Arriving in Interlaken we found it a bit of a disappointment, as it is purely a tourist town which depends entirely on its location between 2 lakes & its amazing rail links of all types accessing the surrounding peaks, which admittedly are pretty stunning. It has 2 separate railway stations at each end of the town & we hopped off at the western end then walked down through the place to the much larger eastern one which provides most of the links.

Luckily it was a beautiful, clear day & we had some great views of the mountains all snow covered & with the wind blowing the snow right across from the peak of the Eiger, just as it was at Everest when we saw it years ago. The other highlight for us was the sight of a flock of paragliders flying in to land in the large, clear grassed, park area opposite the Casino. When they were in the air, they appeared to be somewhat cockroach like & it was only when they landed that we realized that each carried 2 people in a tandem layout.

Towards the eastern edge were 2 churches of similar size but very different ages. One was the church of the original 13th century monastery, long since taken over by the protestants & the other was a late 19th century RC church, built after Catholicism was legalised in the 1860s. The town is graced with many hotels of varying sizes built in the late 1800s in the French style but is awash with upmarket watch shops with eye watering prices. We were surprised at the large numbers of Asian tourists as Thun seems very quirt in comparison.

The return journey on the bus was hard work for the older passengers as a flock of teenagers got on, grabbing seats & proceeded to converse at ear splitting levels until we gratefully left it in Thun, to walk home.