Switzerland 1 - Interlaken

We saw the horses! They were tiny... The farm adjacent to us has two mini-horses that were running about at breakfast.... at first glance, I thought they were sheep. I'll have to check with sage to see if they count as a neigh (horses, cows, etc), or a dog-dog (any four legged animal smaller than a horse and larger than a meow).  Breakfast was good. Adam/Dani/Curtis/Hannah are hiking up a mountain, so we're chilling out back at the hotel with Sage and we're going to take the funicular up to meet them.... after we give them a head start of an our so. So just baby-time now. Such a sacrifice lol. Back to drawing butterflies!  <break>

We loaded Sage up in her backpack and headed down into town, to catch the bus to the city. The hike was easy and downhill, and when I got the straps adjusted correctly my rider? pillion? rode easily, and happily named all the animals we passed, including the mini-horses! (Turns out they're Neighs!) 

The busride was crowded but quick, and we arrived at the train station with no drama. The train over to Harder Kulm...  <Editor: We had to abandon our blogging and our balcony, sounded like a sheep parade was coming. turns out it was just a trailer of sheep leaving the farm next door>  ...The train over to Harder Klum came in 20 minutes... but it was also a 20 minute walk to the funicular. I was feeling fine as a pack-mule, so we walked! We saw lots of dog-dogs, some cows, a couple neighs, and a meow.  Sage is afraid to to sit on my lap or play games with me, but she's happy to ride on my back. Putting Sage in her backpack reminds me of picking up a kitten - she instantly relaxes into travel mode. We hiked across the city, down a side street, and then down the river - the water is a stunning cloudy turquoise color. Maybe because it's glacial? I might look it up and write down why here: "The river Aare's bright blue, turquois, or green color is due to tiny particles of glacier sediment that sink slowly to the bottom of the water."

I was dressed for mountaintops but instead ferrying a toddler, so I had to strip off my coats before boarding the incline. My father refused to return the baby, so I happily traded the baby-pack for our communal backpack, and after a quick wait we headed up the mountain! The incline was pretty quick, and offered great views of the city.... before disappearing into the clouds. We went through a short tunnel and when we came out the top we could see glimpses of the previously hidden mountains on the other side of the valley! And then they disappeared back into clouds.  When we arrived at the top, we met the hiking crew! The four of them had just finished their ascent, were relieved to be up top, and happy to see Sage again.  However, the views were all clouds, with glimpses of random hillsides at various altitudes now and then. We wandered up to the peak/ outlook and had a lunch of snackfoods almost alone. As we finished our food the weather cleared,  and our empty patio was suddenly crowded. The views were fantastic, showing both lakes, the town between them, and dozens of paragliders in the air. We located our hotel, watched the gliders, and figured out which train routes we'd taken so far - typical mountain-top fun. And meanwhile we accidentally photobombed probably a hundred Asians.

The ride down the incline was less fun... it was so crowded I had no view, and Sage was exhausted and threatening to riot. Back on the bottom, we discussed our plans for the afternoon. Sage was going to nap, Hannah/Curt had plans for a second lunch and were considering catching a train to the next town over for the afternoon.  We had been planning to go three towns over - rumors on the bus said there would be a cow parade - but from what we could find online, the cow parade is later in the week... So with no confirmation it was happening and reservations for an early dinner, we decided to hang out in town and play it by ear.

Our first stop was the landing field for the paragliders, where we found a bench and watched them swing through giant S swoops before stalling perfectly still in the wind, and slowly lowering themselves to the ground. Pretty cool, and we found out a booming business selling 15 minute rides whenever the weather is good for $190 (and the weather hadn't been good, so they were making up for lost time). We were then ambushed by a drunk swiss man dressed in a suit covered in a printed pattern of rubber ducks. In broken English, he explained that he had to sell 100 tiny rubber ducks, and make 100 euros, for his wedding. At this point he pointed over to a group of nearly-as-intoxicated men wearing froggy hats.  We bought 2, despite his desperate please we buy at least 15. We wished him the best and he (eventually) went on to harass other tourists.

Then we did some souvenir shopping, mom wanted some chocolate and took us to a chocolatier that had gelato! And then she was astonished when my father bought some... (How can you be surprised? Bringing dad to a gelateria is like dragging an alcoholic into a bar"). I tried some, it was fantastic.  A few more souvenir shops (they really want to sell swiss army knives and watches), and we made our way back to the train station. We took a quick bus-ride back to our town, and got off two stops early in order to Cinque-Terre a new route back... But we accidentally ended up almost exactly at the Italian restaurant we ate at last night, which meant we ended up on the same roads seeing the same sights... 

As we approached one of the intersections a man started motioning us across the road. There was a cacophony coming, and I couldn't imagine what would be so loud that we still had time to cross the road. Rally cars could be that loud, but we'd have no time to cross safely. It must be construction, slowly heading towards us. But in a twist of bizarre fate it was a cow parade! With no planning and no warning, we lucked into a cow parade, and it was chaos! Shepherds and milkmaids driving their flock (about 50 cows) from their summer pastures on the mountain down to their winter pasture in the valley - and the cows were all dressed in their holiday best, which mostly meant wearing flowers on their heads. Their keepers kept them on course (and from running freely down the street) by blocking them with their staffs, and almost as abruptly as it started the last few cows wandered past.  We'd spent so much time debating and researching possible parades just to stumble upon it accidentally... A different bus, a different stop, we would have missed it.

Then, we finished our hike back to the hotel to compare our cow pictures and update our journals. <Break>

Curt had set up reservations for dinner in Unterseen, the old town, at a restaurant that's been there since 1697. After an appetizer of fondue, We settled in for a traditional meal of rutsi (essentially hash browns) with egg, bratwurst, stroganoff, and/or cheese on top, and roche (a mashed-potato style dish including pickled vegetables).  I chose stroganoff rusti with the traditional meat... cheval!  It was the best horse I've ever had (you know, out of all 3? times) - stewing the meat was a great way to tenderize the typically tough ungulate, and it's leanness complimented the gravy nicely. My mother was aghast, and refused to even try the mushrooms (her favorite) in case there was any contamination from the horse. The rest of us all sampled every dish, and it was a delightful meal with almost all the swiss classics.

We wandered back through the old town, hit the paraglider park, found some (more) gellato, and grabbed a bus back to our home town, where we noticed the Alpenglow as the sun illuminated only the peaks in pink, well after it had set for the rest of us. As we hiked back to the hotel we snapped photos of the rosy peaks, and right as the sun set, we noticed the moon rising right above Jungfrau - so well we could even see the visitors center at "The Top of Europe".  So, of course, we snapped more pictures of that. Shooting digitally means you don't have to worry about wasting film, and if you take enough at least one of them has to be good, right?

30 shots, but this one wins