Interlaken Trip - Part 1

Last week we had CJ's fridend Christian visit us in Geneva. We wanted to show him some real Swiss fun and take him to places that he can latertalk about and people will actually know where he was...

We decided to take a trip to the town of Interlaken, a very popular spot in the German part of Switzerland in Bernese Oberland (that is Highlands).  Interlaken is a world famous place for both European and American kids to come for summer AND winter adventures. CJ himself came here 10 years earlier as a college senior after finishing his summer study abroad program in Denmark, and took advantage of some crazy adventure trips offered all over the place - he went paragliding, canyoning and who knows what else.

Interlaken is also a stopover on the way to the Jungfraujoch, the highest tourist/observation complex with a view of Mt Eiger and the Jungfrau two of the highest peaks in Europe. The station is over 11,000 ft above sea level, has restaurants, shops, snow tubing, snowboarding, ziplining etc and the highest functioning Post Office in all of Europe whcih will stamp your mail with a special stamp which says Jungfraujoch, The Top of Europe. But more about that later...

Not only that, but we also watched an episode of Samantha Brown's Passport to Europe when we were getting ready to move here and she took a trip to Interlaken and had some cool recommendations so we thought we would go and see the places ourselve

We left early Saturday morning and drove down the picturesque highways towards Bern. We got to Interlaken around 11:30. The day was gorgeous and looked like it would stay that way so we did not rush to go up to the Jungfrau. Instead, we walked around the town, took pictures, visited the old Youth Hostel where CJ had stayed when he was visiting Interlaken a decade earlier and had some delicious lunch at a 300-year-old Inn/Restaurant recommended by Samantha B, called Hirschen's. Here are some pictures.

And below is Hirschen and our tasty lunches - we ordered the traditional Swiss German meal of Rosti with stuff... mine had bacon, onions and mushrooms, Cory's had ham & cheese and something else... All on top of hasbrown potatoes.Yumm!
But first the view we had across the street...

Later we wanted to check out the hundred y-o hotel Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel, where Samantha B stayed (goes for over 500 Euro per night in the off-season...).

Here you can actually see my belly starting to stick out. I am wearing normal clothes and they're getting tight.

While wandering around we discovered that there was a Schwingen contest and a Yodeling festival going on in the fairgrounds right across from Victoria Jungfrau.
What is Schwingen you might ask? Why it is the national sport of Switzerland, also called Swiss wrestling. From boys all the way to burly men, competitors face each other on small, round, saw-dust covered rings. They wear slacks and button down shirts (!!!!) and funny looking shorts made out of potato sacks (I think). They set up, grab each other by the shorts and wrestle. Pretty crazy. Each match lasts only a few minutes but the tension and effort are insane. Here are some pictures from what I thought were qualifiers.

The real thing was televised the next morning and only the grown men were competing at that time.
Now while you enjoy the pictures, imagine some Yodeling and Alp horn music in the background while this is going on... Hah... Awesome!

All the time while the guys were fighting, we could see tandem paragliders landing in the open field next door. Just like CJ did 10 years earlier.

More to come soon...