Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Interlaken

I'm officially on Christmas break, and started out my Eurotrip in Interlaken, Switzerland. Let me just tell you that this city literally makes a person feel like they have stepped into a postcard or a snow globe. You are literally surrounded by 360 degrees of Swiss Alps and it's absolutely amazing. This is the first time I've seen snow since I've been in Europe, and there was a ton of it! It was snowing at some point each day I was there for at least a few hours, and it was just beautiful.

The first morning, I met a girl at breakfast who invited me to go with her and some of her friends to a few ski towns. I took her up on the offer and had an amazing day hiking around and exploring the villages of Murren, Switzerland and Gimmelwald (Links of which are posted below).
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCrren

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimmelwald

Both places were just quaint, gorgeous villages with the most amazing views of the Swiss Alps you could ever imagine. Everything was so unspoiled and untouched, and when we were there, there was hardly anybody around, and we didn't run into any other tourists. It was just perfect! The second village were were in, Gimmelwald, was even smaller than Murren, and we were the only people walking around outside.

While in Gimmelwald, we saw a house that had a sign on the door which read "Ring Bell For Service", so we did, and a woman answered the door and let us into her little shop in her house. After about 20 minutes of talking to her, she invited us up into her home for tea and traditional Swiss coffee cake. It was really cool, and something none of us could have planned! We ended up talking to her for about 2 hours, and learned all about her life and job, and even found out she runs a bed and breakfast in her home. Later, she invited us to watch a Christmas pageant that was being put on by kids from the school she works at, so we got to see the Nativity story in German! It was a really excellent and completely unexpected day.

Later the first night, I met a bunch of people in the t.v. room of the hostel, and we just sat by the fire and exchanged travel adventures.
The next day, I explored the actual town of Interlaken, as well as walked on a trail along the lake. It was snowing all day, so I couldn't see the mountains at all, but it was a nice hike nonetheless. That night, I hung out with the same people from the night before.

Interlaken was a really beautiful town, and I would absolutely recommend going there if you get a chance.



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