Extreme sports + snow = chess and chocolate

Before the snow...
see all photos »

Interlaken, meaning between lakes, is situated between two lakes. Despite the lack of imagination of its name, Interlaken represents base camp for thrill seekers visiting the Jungfrau mountain. Interlaken sports a heap of cool activities like Canyoning, Hanggliding, Paragliding, and Skiing, to name a few.

... and after the snow
see all photos »

Except when it snows. 5 days from the start of summer. For the exact duration that Richard and Elena are visiting.

If its awailable, take it for yourself why not?

Now there's not really that much to see in Interlaken when the weather is down (except the lakes), but we tried out best.

The place we stayed at, Funny Farm Hostel, had us placed on the roof level of a barn (a better word I cannot find). This barn had one 1 bathroom. With two toilets and two showers. Between 50+ people. That you had to go outside to get to.

Thun Castle
see all photos »

It rained all the first day so we didn't do much except sit in the bar and read (and play chess). We woke in the morning to the sound of one of the guys that worked there saying that, in a freak occurance for this time of year, it was snowing and that we could change to a room in the main building because the barn had no heating.

It was cold. Extremely cold.

The snow meant we could no longer visit the Jungfrau or Gindelwald mountains. On the bright side we got moved to a 6 bed room. On the brighter side, 2 of the beds were in their own room. When we enquired to whether there were assigned beds, Klaus said "If its awailable [sic], take it for yourself why not?" (think Hugh Laurie's Prince Ludwig the Indestructible from Blackadder, or at least an extremely thick Swiss accent). So the snow gave us an almost-private twin room in a hostel for 18 euro a night, and all it took in return was our entire purpose for visiting Interlaken. Sigh.

The view from Thun castle
see all photos »

On the third day of rain (thankfully the snow stopped), we decided to visit a neighboring town called Thun (pronounced Tuhn). We were only there for just over an hour, but were able to check out an old castle (at the "Top of Tuhn") that is now a museum. Inside were some extremely old rooms that were really cool. A few prison rooms even still had graffiti of day counting and dates which was really cool (from a historic point of view, I'm not a sadist).

After our visit to Thun we went to a show on the art of chocolate making, which Elena had to be forced (FORCED!) to attend as you can imagine. It's amazing the amount of work that goes into even getting the raw ingredients from the cocoa beans. As part of the 14 CHF (9 EUR, 15 AUD) show, we got 10 CHF worth of chocolate from the store, so its a 10 CHF forced purchase and a 4 CHF show - not bad. The chocolates were great, but Elena retains that the Zurich chocolates are superior.