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Kilometers - 60
Passes - none
Today was a free day and since we spent the entirety of our first free day roaming the incredible passes around Arabba, Italy, we thought we would spend today at the hotel. Yeah, right!
The hotel in Beatenberg was up one side of the valley from Interlaken. This gave it the best view of the Jungfrau, Monach, and Eiger mountains as well as Lake Brienz (Brienzersee). The temptation to go sight-see on the other side of Interlaken was too great, so we packed lightly and headed off to Lauterbrunnen after discussion as to whether to drive or take the train.
This is the Schtaubach fall at Lauterbrunnen (I think?). David's navigating was excellent and we followed the parking signs to this lot right under the falls. Parking was a cultural experience. Seems the metal in the motorcycles wasn't enough to get the gate up. Paige snuck through after David and Brian put the two bikes together and created the metal mass required. Then we had to figure out how to pay. Ultimately we gave up and stiffed the community a whole $3 or something.
We walked through Lauterbrunnen and discovered that most of the stores we wanted to stop in were not going to open until after lunch. Since we wanted to have a cog train experience, we decided to travel up to the village of Wengen, eat lunch, and then return when the stores opened. This is a picture of Lauterbrunnen from the train.
The falls and village from the train. This train continues up to the Jungfrau for a mere $180 round-trip from Interlaken. Wengen was recommended to us by a woman we met at the AAA in Albuquerque. She said it was a charming town not accessible by motor vehicles, only by train. Since it was a relatively inexpensive way to satisfy our cog train itch, we went to find out for ourselves.
Paige on the train.
More train. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Wengen. During lunch, Paige suddenly gasped and pointed out that it was raining. No big deal, except that we had left our helmets locked to the bikes and they were probably getting wet. Since we were locked in by the train schedule, we decided not to panic and continue our dining and shopping.
Somewhere down there next to the church, near the falls, are our motorcycles and helmets getting rained on.
Brian on the train. He wouldn't be smiling if he knew what a time we were going to have trying to get into our rain gear in the downpour once we reached the parking lot below. We entertained several tourons with that show.
Brian also might not be smiling if he knew what was in store for him this evening. After joining Leslie and Richard in our hotel's restaurant for dinner (we ate cheese fondue, which was wonderful!) it was time to do some laundry in the hotel's laundry room. During this process Brian went to step over a piece of luggage in his room and put his foot down on a shoe lying hidden on the other side, and rolled his ankle, which immediately swelled up to a large size. With Paige's help he managed to finish his laundry, and with Richard's reassurances (Richard is a paramedic) he hobbled through the rest of the tour.
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