The Harder Kulm. Milan and Home

On Wednesday, June 28^th, we decided to go up to the Harder Kulm, though the weather looked iffy.  Would we be able to see anything?  The Harder is the mountain behind (north of) Unterseen.  It is not very high as Swiss mountains go, but its summit (or Kulm) is situated to provide great views of the Jungfrau, the lakes of Thun and Brienz and the Bödeli—the fluvial plain that the river Lütschine created to separate the two lakes, by carving out the valley that opens up the vista of the Jungfrau that put Interlaken on the map.  Of course, running through the Bödeli from the Brienzersee to the Zugersee is the river Aare, and on the north side of the river is old, staid Unterseen, Mary Joy’s ancestral village, while on the south side is loud, newer (somewhat) Interlaken.

We took the funicular up to the top, and the clouds stayed out of our way, so we took in the views, then decided to have lunch on the restaurant terrace, in sight of the Jungfrau and the passing parasailors.

Then we went down, did some gift shopping in Interlaken, then, as it finally started to rain, caught our train for Spiez, where we caught another for Brig, where we caught another back to Milano Centrale, arriving in a fairly heavy rain.  But it was only a five-minute walk to the amazing Hotel Berna.  Our room was in the tower across the street,  We were bowled over by comfort of the room, the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff, the amenities, including free drinks in the mini-bar refrigerator, and, especially the rubber ducky in the bathroom!  All this at a price (prepaid on Expedia) that compared very favorably with the other hotels we had stayed in. 

We were too tired to go out in the rain to find a restaurant, especially since our guidebooks (Lonely Planet and Rick Steves) recommended none in the area by the station (the recommended restaurants were generally near the Duomo, a number of metro stops away.  So, against our better judgment, we used the hotel’s catered-in room service.  Not great.

The next morning, Thursday June 29^th, we had breakfast as soon as it opened, 6:30, and then checked out and caught the 7:25 Malpenza Express train.

 

Our trans-Atlantic flight was uneventful.

We arrived in Newark about twenty minutes early, at 1:40.  We checked to see if we could get out earlier than our scheduled 8 p.m. flight to the Twin Cities.  Nothing was open.  In addition, our plane was about an hour late arriving, so we didn’t end up getting home until around 11:30.  All in all, it was a grueling 25-hour day.

Giessbach

On Tuesday, June 27^th, we walked over to Interlaken Ost—not by the direct route on the Hoheweg through the heart of Interlaken tourism, but along the north bank of the Aare, through Unterseen.  At the boat dock by the Interlaken Ost station, we got our tickets to take the boat on the Brienzersee across to Giessbach.  By luck, the boat we got was the retro paddlewheel steamer Lötschberg.  We entered the lake, then wove our way back and forth across it, stopping at Bönigen, Ringgenberg and Iseltwald, before the Grand Hotel Giessbach appeared in the distance, high above the lake, and gradually got closer.

We got off at the Giessbach landing, bought our tickets for the Giessbachbahn funicular and got on board.  As Wikipedia says: “The funicular, opened in 1879, was the first Swiss funicular to be built specifically for the transport of tourists.”  It takes two minutes to go up the 98 meters (322 feet) to the hotel.  We had lunch (a nice sort of quiche) at the Grand Hotel’s terrace restaurant, directly in view of the spectacular Giessbach Falls.

After lunch, we took the path to view the waterfall close up. 

Going down on the funicular, we met a friendly family from Abu Dhabi, the women wearing long dresses and hijabs.  The mother spoke very good English.  Somehow, it came up that her young son’s favorite ice cream was Ben and Jerry’s.

We took the boat back across the Brienzersee, then walked back through Unterseen.  That evening we had a very good meal at our favorite Interlaken restaurant, the Goldener Anker (“Golden Anchor”).