Hipskind European Adventure: Interlaken

On the Monday my parents were here, we went to Interlaken and it was BEAUTIFUL!  I am in love.  Interlaken is a town just 90 minutes south of Zurich that is nestled between two long lakes, Brienzersee and Thunersee (thus the name of the town: Interlaken).  However, when most people talk about Interlaken, they are actually referring to the whole region around the town that includes the two lakes, several other adorable lakeside towns, and the beautiful mountains surrounding the lakes.  The most famous mountains in this region are three peaks just south of Interlaken called the Eiger (Ogre), the Mönch (Monk), and the Jungfrau (Maiden/Virgin).  These mountains, besides the Matterhorn, are usually what you see when you look at pictures of the Swiss Alps.

To reach the mountains, you travel just fifteen minutes south of Interlaken into either of two valleys.  The first valley, which I don't know exactly the name of, has the popular resort town of Grindelwald.  The second valley, the one that we went to is called Lauterbrunnen valley because the town at the bottom of the valley is called Lauterbrunnen.  The geography can be hard to picture, but this train map helped me sort it out in my mind.

So we began the day with driving straight to Lauterbrunnen and stopped at the grocery store across from the train station to pick up things for a picnic.  I highly recommend doing this because there are amazing picnic spots all around and it would be a shame to waste your time inside a restaurant while in the area.  We then took another fantastic Swiss mountain train from Lauterbrunnen, all the way up to a train stop called Kleine Scheidegg, meaning minor watershed (you can see it on the map I linked to).

The view from the train as we climb up from Lauterbrunnen

Looking south through the Lauterbrunnen valley

Mom and Steve on the mountain train

Me and Darren on the mountain train

Winding our way around a smaller mountain to reach the base of the Eiger, up ahead

The Eiger is the peak covered by a cloud on the left, the Mönch is to the right, and the Jungfrau is not in this picture

The train was slow-going as it climbed up 4,000 feet, but the view was amazing.  We finally arrived at Kleine Scheidegg, which is at 6,700 feet.  This is the last stop for this train, but another train that leaves from this station actually goes even higher to an observatory at 11,000 ft in between the Eiger and the Mönch.  That station is called Jungfraujoch, and is the highest train station in Europe.  As you can see in the picture below of the observatory, it is always cold up there because it is a glacier, so you have to be prepared with warm jackets if you go up that high.

Kleine Scheidegg station

Jungfraujoch observatory captured with 35x zoom

After we arrived in Kleine Scheidegg, we hiked up the hill toward the base of the Eiger a bit and I found the most perfect picnic spot.  For those who are not familiar with the Williams/Hipskinds (my mother's family), a perfect picnic spot is a family obsession and we really feel like we took the crown with this place.  Our spot at the base of the Eiger had a full view of all three peaks.  We could also see down into the Grindelwald valley and across the Lauterbrunnen valley.  The scenery was so amazing that it felt like it wasn't even real.  I could not get enough of looking up at seeing beautiful green hills and the Eiger in the background.

Our perfect picnic spot

Our view of the town of Grindelwald

Us with the Mönch peak in the middle, and the snow-covered Jungfrau on the right

Me and Mom running down the hill pretending to be in the Sound of Music (yes we know that was Austria)

After our amazing picnic, we went on a hike around the area for an hour or so.  We took a less-traveled trail and it was fantastic!  We felt like the only people on the mountain and stopped every few minutes to enjoy something new.

Steve and the Jungfrau

The popular resort town of Mürren on the other side of Lauterbrunnen valley

Taking the train back down to Lauterbrunnen

After our amazing picnic and hike, we took the train back down to Lauterbrunnen to pick up our car and then we drove to the eastern part of Brienzersee to our hotel called Giessbach Grand Hotel.  This hotel sits on a hill that overlooks the lake and is next to the Giessbach Falls.

View of Brienzersee from the hotel

Giessbach Falls

Us next to the waterfalls

The beautiful hotel we stayed at

Darren and I hiked up part up the falls

That night we all got cleaned up and had an amazing French dinner at the hotel with an amazing view of the waterfalls from our table.  We had a long meal and watched as thunder clouds rolled in from the west, but never quite made it to our side of Interlaken.  We were lucky we picked a hotel on the eastern part of the area.  The hotel was beautiful and the view was amazing, but the beds in the rooms were pretty bad and most of us didn't sleep that night.  We didn't regret staying there, but we were all a bit tired the next day.

Steve, Mom, and I at the Giessbach Grand Hotel restaurant

The beautiful breakfast room on the next morning

Darren and I in front of the entrance to the hotel

As we made our way back to Zurich, we stopped at one of the many castles that surround the other lake, Thunersee.  We walked around the grounds of Spiez Castle as it was lightly raining and admired the old buildings, the well-maintained gardens, and the incorporated winery where they were bottling.  Apparently it's very popular in Europe to have wineries attached to castles!

Spiez Castle

The cute town of Spiez

In the next post I will talk about our quick tour of Zurich and wrap up the Hipskind European Adventure!