interlaken, switzerland

after a train ride via milan, zurich and a stop the night in lucern we made it to interlaken in the northern edge of the swiss alps. the whole of the town is at 560m. this picture shows two mountains, and it may seem weird that the shorter one has the snow.

breitlauenen on the left is 1500m tall while the snow capped peak is jungfrau is 3400m tall. "what?!", i hear you exclaim, "but mat, in the picture breitlauenen looks bigger?" this is because jungfrau is so much further away (i think it was about 35km).

this is lake brienz just near interlaken. the water looks beautiful but at 560m it is a little chilly.

we decided to go up the nearby schilthorn peak. (to go up the biggest peak jungfrau (4100m) cost way too much). so after a train and then a venicular railway and another train we got to a little village called murren. here is about 150 degree panorama from an average street. what a place to live! not bad views.

after murren you take a cablecar to birg. here's me standing around. one more cablecar to get to the top!

here is ren at 2900m on the schilthorn summit (finally) what this sign means we're not sure. who's going to wear high heels at almost 10,000feet?? and you'd think if anything it would be NO highheels (there is no red bar through this sign)

thank goodness it was summer too. it was twelve degrees celsius up here so not very cold! (it was colder than this when we first returned to sydney)

also this was the peak used in the filming of some old bond film. (maybe "man with the golden gun?!?!")

here is a pic of me walking along the edge of the top of schilthorn. what? you can't see me? maybe my home made "mats zoomomatic virtual reality experience" will help

here is another amazingly high view from schilthorn. there are two story chalet's in the valley before another mammoth drop. don't see the chalet's? maybe once again "mats zoomomatic virutal reality experience technology" can help you out!

and what would be the mandatory purchase when visiting switzerland? (apart from swiss chocolate of course) the swiss army knife! in the store we brought our knifes there were well over 100 different types to choice from. i choose the 'cyber-tool', a swiss army knife with the tools required for assembling computers. they had knifes with digital watches, altometers, laser pointers, the works!

and finally here is the river near where we stayed. for some reason the water here was this fantastic aqua colour. it was a similiar colour to this in canada. is this because of the altitude? maybe the temperture of the air (though it wasn't too cold) or was it because of the smurf-dye spillage they had had upstream?

others things to looks at!
next stop, paris, france!
index