Heimwehfluh and Neuhaus

On Monday, August 13th, I went out early, looking, unsuccessfully, for Internet access, then picked up coffee (Nestlé Gold instant packets), strawberries, muesli, milk and soap at the Coop. We had breakfast, then walked down the street behind the West railway station to the Heimwehfluh cable car station. We had a pair of tourist passes (Interlaken charges a tax on all rooms, which funds them, so everyone renting a room there gets one), but unlike the buses and Niederhorn cable car, there was no discount to the Heimwehfluh, except for the model railroad museum, which did not interest us.

The Heimwehfluh is not very high, compared to all of the other cable car destinations in the area, but it was close in and relatively inexpensive, and we had an appointment at two.

First, we went up to the watchtower, which had some nice views over the whole Interlaken-Unterseen area. The mountains to the south were a little too hazy to be their usual awe-inspiring selves. Then we decided to take a walk along one of their "undangerous" trails. This turned out to take longer (over an hour) and be more strenuous than expected. It was mostly up and down through dense forest, with few good views and none any better than from the tower. One thing it showed us was that we are in better shape than we thought we were. We had no aches or pains at all from the previous day's exertions and had no trouble with this much shorter hike. Another thing was that we came across several lilac blooms (in August!), as well as some delicious blackberries.

We ate lunch (large, very good mixed salads) at the restaurant, then went back to our apartment, in time to do the short bus ride to Neuhaus, on the Thunersee. Neuhaus is a hotel-restaurant-beach-boat complex, with its own ferry stop, at the far west end of Untersehen. Albert and Kathi were there already, Margot and her sister Dorli arrived a little later. While we were drinking our coffee, Albert brought out the photo album that had belonged to his father-in-law, Bernhard.

At this point, we will stop to clarify the family relationships. Around the middle of the 19th century, Mary Joy's family came down from the Simmen valley to Unterlaken, apparently drawn by the economic opportunities created by the Interlaken area's already large tourist trade. It was a large family. One of the older brothers, Karl, had a son named Robert, who went off to America, married a German woman, died young (31) in 1905 or 1906 and left the Wisconsin branch of the family, including Mary Joy. Karl's younger brother (Robert's uncle) Fritz had 15 children, by two wives. One of them, Bernhard, had a daughter, Jolanda, who married Albert and had three daughters, Silvia, Irma and Eva. Another of Fritz's sons, Bernhard's brother Otto, also had three daughters, Margot, Dorli and Susi (who died not long ago). The photos were of Fritz's family, mostly from 80 to maybe 100 years ago. There were two special pictures from Margot's christening in 1925. One showed the whole family there at the time, while the other showed old Fritz, his second wife and the fourteen of his fifteen children that managed to be there. The other was living in Lithuania.

So a summary of relationships. Fritz was Mary Joy's great-great-great uncle. Bernhard and Otto were her first cousins three times removed. Jolanda, Margot and Dorli are second cousins twice removed. Eva, Silvia and Irma are her third cousins once removed. Silvia's and Irma's children and Margot's grandchildren are Mary Joy's fourth cousins. And Silvia's little grandson Timo is Mary Joy's fourth cousin once removed.

Albert also had pictures from the 80s and 90s of Mary Joy, her parents and her uncles and aunts.

In this group, Mary Joy and I were very much the juniors, since none of the others was under eighty. But aside from Kathi's mobility problems and the fact that Margot arrived with her arm in a sling, because her doctor had ordered her to rest it, everyone seemed to be in good shape for their age. I had never met Dorli, who had spent much of her life in Singapore, where her husband Hans worked. But she remembered Mary Joy very well and when she had called Margot to arrange a visit and had learned that we would be there on the 13th, she had set up her visit specifically to coincide with ours.

It was very pleasant company, but all good things must come to an end, so Albert and Kathi drove us back to our apartment, and waited parked below while I ran up to get the bottle of Alsatian cremant that we had brought him from Colmar. The street is one of a the busiest in the Interlaken area, and when I returned, there was some difficulty finding a gap in the traffic to enable Albert to back out of his parking spot. But Mary Joy stepped into the street, held up her hand and stopped a Mercedes long enough for Albert to pull out and drive away.

Then we visited Jolanda's grave, in the Unterseen church graveyard.

We finally got fifteen minutes of Internet access for five euros at the Interlaken Ost (i.e., East) railway station, just enough to check e-mail. Then, tired, we tried a new restaurant for dinner: it is called Ox, and it's on the market square in Interlaken. I don't remember what we had to eat, but I do remember that was very good, though a little pricey. "Finally," Mary Joy told the hostess, "there's a good restaurant in Interlaken."

Then home to bed.