Day #10 of our trip, we said arrivaderci to Milan, and all of Italy as well! Time to leave the land of pasta, Renaissance art, and Italian MTV for our next country: Switzerland. Our train left at like 11 something, and it was a gorgeous 3 hour ride there, including going past Lake Como, and tons of other mountain scenery. We arrived in Interlaken around 2ish, where it was actually warm and sunny! The nicest day yet of our trip- which is kind of ironic. Who would have expected Switzerland to be warmer than Italy?!
We stowed our backpacks in a locker at the train station, and then got some cash in Swiss Francs - which is the ONLY European currency which the dollar is stronger than, hooray! However, everything in Switzerland is expensive, so it pretty much balances out. We then went to make our train reservations to get to Nice on Friday the 6th...only to find out that all the trains we wanted to take were booked!!! Apparently Nice is popular over Easter, who knew. :p Katie and I had a bit of a panic attack, realizing we'd have to change our plans, but we found a good compromise by booking a night train from Mulhouse (France), to Nice, which allowed us to only have to cancel our hotel for that one night. Whew.
After that fiasco was over, we set off to explore Interlaken a bit. Interlaken was just gorgeous - it's at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by several mountains and two lakes. It's only about 5,500 people, but gets plenty of tourists, so there were lots of shops with tacky souvenirs to check out. :) We also happened to find the Schuh chocolate shop, which my cousin Sarah had told me about their fabulous chocolate shows. So, we did that, and got to learn how chocolate is made from the shop's chocolate 'chef', and even create and try some samples of our own. Mmm mmm :) Katie and I each splurged and got a box of 9 truffles from their shop - with flavors ranging from latte macciato, to toffee, to champagne.
We ate dinner at a quaint little restaurant by the West train station, and had what I think was some traditional German food. We're really confused here as to which language to speak - the menus and signs are in German, but lots of people speak French, Spanish, and Italian too! So...we're going with English. :)
Around 8, we took the train up the mountain to Lauterbrunnen, which is also in a valley sandwiched between several colossal mountains. It was just gorgeous at night. We sat on the balcony of our little alpine chalet of a hostel and stared out at the mountains...everything is so quiet here at night because NOTHING is going on. And sometimes, I like it that way. :)
Our hostel here, Valley Hostel, is just amazing too. It´s an alpine chalet, just like every other house here, with cozy rooms, and awesome owners - the Abbeglen family - Alfred, Martha, Franzi, and Stefan, who also live there. They´re all super nice, we talked to Stefan for awhile tonight, and asked him if he´d met Rick Steves. :) We also met their cat, Diggy, who is 15 years old and lives half outside, but is definitely friendly and let me pet it for a long time. It´s just like home now, I have cat hair all over my coat again...
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