Enchantment of Eastern Europe

A cruise on the Eastern Danube

Tuesday June 4 – sunshine!

Here’s a little lesson I learned; before smearing what you THINK is lotion on your arms, use google translate to make sure! It turns out this is shower gel, and does NOT work well as a body lotion! Hahahaha! Back into the shower I go!

What a treat to see sunshine and blue skies this morning! The birds are singing up a storm, seemingly happy for the blue skies too. We had our coffee and fruit, and I paced while waiting for Gary to be ready!

I thought this area was beautiful when it was cloudy and rainy – what could I possibly think when the sun is shining? We left the apartment and enjoyed a very pleasant walk along the Aare River.

At 10:30 we took the funicular up Harder Kulm, which cost was covered by the Berner Oberlander pass. The funicular railway takes eight minutes to ascend Harder Kulm.

From the cantilevered viewing platform at 4,337 feet we could look down on Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, and admire the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.

We think the base jumpers are glad the weather is better, as we saw a lot of them today!

We were back down at 12:10 and walked to the Interlaken OST train station to take bus 21 to St Beatus caves. My buddy Rick suggested bus #21 as a way to get to the cave without having to take the steep climb, but we still had quite the climb! The bus ride was covered by our local guest card and gave us a 2CHF discount to enter the caves.

At 1:17 we entered the cave, rather than waiting for the 2pm guided tour. Honestly, my heart rate was probably pretty high because there was no one in front of us and we were wondering what could possibly be around every corner! It was astounding!

The volume of water is incredible!

We walked out of the cave at 2pm and bought a beer. Gary brought this cute bottle home as a souvenir!

We walked along a very lovely, peaceful path down to the dock to catch the boat.

We didn’t get off the boat at any of the three castles on the lake because we were running out of steam again.

The boat criss-crossed the lake several times before backing into its dock in Thun at 4:30.

We walked the very short distance to the train station, hopped on the train and were whisked to Interlaken West.

We had thought to go to the Irish Pub across the street, but it wasn’t open, so we walked to the Metropole Hotel and enjoyed a beer on the 18th floor.

All day long, we’ve been watching the bass jumpers and from our perch here, we could see them land. It made Gary even less likely to do it, but it made me think it would be fun to do!