On Tuesday, June 27th, 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”).
No comments:
Post a Comment