Interlaken is another city in Switerland that is not spectacular on its own, but the mountains surrounding it are amazing. Interlaken is located in a valley between mountains on two sides and two lakes surround the other two sides. Our first day in Interlaken we hiked a (relatively) small mountain on the lower mountain range by the city. It was like a ghost town at the top because a rock slide from earlier this summer had shut down the train to the top, so there were only a handful of hikers at the resort at the top. Once again, we had very good weather and a great view from the mountain top.

Day two we hiked a couple hours from town through a huge gorge to reach the base of the Jungfrau region mountains. The train to the top of the Jungfrau costs 169 francs (there is no Eurail discount) and our daily budget is about 50, so needless to say we skipped the Jungfrau. However, we hiked to other mountain villages on nearby mountains and the views were also spectacular, we have very good pictures of the Jungfrau from a distance. Some of the better villages we hiked to included Gimmelwald and Mürren. Gimmelwald is located on the slope of a mountain about 3000 meters (~9000) feet up. I can't even imagine trying to live in a village that remote, but then again their view is a little better than the back of my apartment complex which overlooks some 'woods'.

Interlaken is definitely geared more towards adventure sports than hikers, I actually think its the adventure sports capital of the world. Lots of skydiving, paragliding, canyoning, and so on. I'd love to go back when I have a.) money and more importantly b.) health insurance.

Also, we had our first legit meal in Interlaken in about a week. We usually eat most of our meals from food picked up at the grocery store, but one night we splurged and got a huge fondue-esque thing. It had an oil fondue at the top, a round grill that circled the fondue pot, a cheese raclette oven below the grill, and it came with about every kind of meat and vegetable, and everything. Theres a picture of it in the Interlaken folder, but Im not sure if that will do it justice. The raclette (not sure how you spell it) was by far the best, it is comprised of puting swiss cheese slices on a little pan and cooking them in an oven.