Chapter 4 - Northern Europe - swiss moment

We had a nice breakfast of muesli, yogurt, tough sourdough bread, tea and jam. Breakfast seems to be the one meal that’s really different in every country. At home it’s full of sugar, with muffins and doughnuts and syrup on pancakes and waffles. In Holland and Belgium there was cold meat and cheese on thin breads and in France it was all crusty rolls and coffee, severe and sophisticated. Switzerland is healthy, in a rustic kind of way.

We decided that we want a real ‘Swiss moment’ and Interlaken sounded like a good bet for finding it. All the pictures we’d seen of the place were filled with quaint wooden houses, cows with bells around their necks and pots of cheese fondue. On the way there we passed lakes and high cliffy mountains, healthy men scything hay in fields and more healthy men piling hay on wagons and open sheds. Niki was salivating.

In the end Interlaken didn’t inspire us, but we had a few hours before the next train so took a boat trip on Thun Lake. A steam operated paddle wheeler slowly did the circuit, stopping at various scenic landings to let people on and off, blowing its whistle continuously. By this time the sun was hot, lighting up that amazing electric blue water. Such a colour! I got one of my ‘beauty pains’. Does anyone else feel pain when they look at something beautiful or am I just weird that way?

We rushed back through Interlaken to get the train to Grindelwald, a pretty town at the end of a high curving track. After looking around and not seeing any signs for ‘pensions’, we stopped at a little grocery store and tried to ask the woman there where we could stay. Our French wasn’t much help – everyone speaks German here, and we didn’t think she understood what we wanted at all because she kept pointing to the ceiling. Finally the shopwoman, looking exasperated, grabbed Niki’s hand and dragged her upstairs.

I was convinced the woman was going to lock her in a room and steal her money, so I followed right behind wondering how on earth I might prevent it. I had just decided that the most effective deterrent would be to hit her with my lumpy, heavy backpack when she led us into a large room with two beds made up. Ahhh, she has a room to rent! That’s why she had been pointing to the ceiling. The relief we both felt was enormous. After much nodding, smiling and hand shaking I think the shopwoman felt relief too.

We went back downstairs to put together a picnic: a loaf of bread, a bottle of white wine called Niersteiner, which Niki said was really good, and some Swiss Cheese called Emmenthal. Our landlady obviously found it amusing that we called it ‘Swiss Cheese’, sort of like when we asked for ‘French Bread’ in France. We hiked along a track following a gurgling stream and ate to the sound of cow bells and the sight of wild flowers with the peak of the Jungfrau just visible. We found our Swiss moment! I closed my eyes to savour the feeling, knowing I will always remember it.