It was a long drive on Tuesday, $50 worth of tolls made it a bit quicker. First stop in Switzerland was Montreux 'by the Lake Geneva shoreline'. We left the flare gun at home and Deep Purple off the ipod unfortunately, so no Smoke on the Water.
We made do with some Queen though. Freddie was in fine form, we missed his birthday celebrations by a couple of days but he was still all dressed up. Apparently Queen have owned a recording studio here since the 70's and Freddy liked the 'peacefulness' so lived for some time, as did Charlie Chaplin.
Fribourg Youth Hostel was our first night's accommodation. Switzerland is so expensive the hostels were our only affordable option for five us. It was a bit of a schock to the system after the luxury of our Provencale villa. From two bedrooms and bathrooms to one cell like room and a shared bathroom. Our neighbours were a little noisy, a large boisterous group of youths who liked bursting into each others rooms un-announced but had trouble remembering which rooms were which. A bit of a Coffee Bean situation, we wanted the window open but it was noisy from a nearby bar, not too bad but not a lot of sleep.
Dinner was kebabs, nice but cost as much as dinner in a restaurant at home.
We set off for the capital Bern next morning. It's a lovely old town on the river, doesn't feel like a capital city at all, actually it isn't really as Switzerland doesn't nominate one officially.
Bern is famous for it's bears which used to live in a bear pit near the river but now have a more humane compound on the riverbank. It started in the 1400's with a single bear captured by someone and the tradition has continued.
We also went man shopping for a Swiss army knife for Sam, he wanted one as a souvenir/birthday present of Switzerland.
Last night we spent at Interlaken so decided to catch the train to Jungfrau 'The Top of Europe'. It is the highest point you can reach without mountain climbing. 3571m on a cog railway through the mountain. Mt Jungfrau is next to Mt Eiger with its infamous 'North Face'. The railway is amazing and has a stop in the North Face with a viewing platform. It was built 100 years ago and has run on electricity the whole time. They now capture power from the braking system of descending trains and return it to the grid, very Formula 1!
It was freezing but we had rugged up digging out our warm clothes from England. Must have been quite a sight with all our suitcases pulled out in the carpark. This is the area from James Bond's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. We caught a train up from a village in Grindelwald, there are two lines that go up to the Jungfrau railway so you can also catch a train directly from Interlaken but we wanted a drive in the mountains (and it costs heaps more).
The scenery is spectacular of course. They have built quite a complex at the top, shops and restaurants (including a Bollywood themed Indian one) as well as an ice palace. You can also take the lift up to a viewing platform in the research station. We couldn't stay too long though due to the cold and there were only two more trains back down.
Our accommodation last night was nicer than Fribourg. The room wasn't as cell like and it was much quieter here. Dinner was traditional Swiss at a charming little restaurant, Sam had been craving schnitzel and rosti so wasn't disappointed. Em, Tan and I had a rosti dish each as well, it's offered as a main with various toppings, chicken, ham, mushrooms etc.
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| Switzerland Day 1-2 |
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