Boxing Day

The view from our room.  Check out those fuel tanks!

We slept hard last night and didn’t wake until almost 9 AM (which was awesome)!  We made a conscious decision to take it easy this trip and not worry about trying to do and see everything.  We made it down to breakfast by a leisurely 10AM, and had hashbrowns (invented in Switzerland) and of course, Swiss cheese!!  The cheese was fantastic!!  The hashbrowns…well, those needed help.  We’ll keep trying. 

Hashbrowns in their country of origin!!

Breakfast view...and home airline!

Typical tourists!  Running around the train looking for backdrops!

After checkout, we walked to the bus stop, bussed to the airport, found the “Bahnhof” (train station), and our train to Interlaken.  Train 81 was direct (no connections = no missed connections).  Also SBB (the Swiss train) has an app that tells you how crowded you can expect the cars to be.  81 was the least busy.  Watching from the platform the two trains prior to ours, Second Class was FULL, and First Class was getting there.  When ours arrived, it was a scramble as we could see the 2^nd cars pretty full with lots of people waiting and seemingly a lot of people trying to get on 1^st.  We splurged for FC, and it was well worth it!  Even though it was a little messy getting in and situated, we headed to the upper deck, where there were plenty of seats, and a few places for luggage.  After the first stop, a spot with four seats opened up so we moved over to have a bit more room.  The ride was smooth and had a few pretty views (but a lot of not so pretty).  Still, it was a nice ride.

Old and new mixed oddly.

There will be a LOT of mountain pics this week.  But which one will "peak" your interest?  :-)

A bicycle parking "garage" in Bern?

A very Alpine view!!

Following the crowd to find our way out.

Arriving in Interlaken, we walked through a bit of town to get to our hotel.  Our hotel building, Carlton Europe, is 125 years old.  But our room felt very large for such an old hotel building, and is decorated very nicely!!  There is an antique writing desk, a tiny fridge that almost works, and a really nice patio (which doubles as a working fridge)!  After getting situated in our room, we headed out to the grocery store.  We find it fun to shop in local stores in other countries, as we get to see what people eat, and sometimes see interesting things!  But in Germany (and apparently Switzerland) they have a lot of beer options.  So, we grabbed a few singles to try some local flavor.

Arriving at our hotel!

A very nice room...

...with a walk out balcony!!

No fighting over covers!  Complete with a Ricola candy!

Charming stairs!

It's a vintage hotel for adults, not a hotel for "vintage adults"!
(We think.  Or at least are choosing to believe!)

The many high points of the Alps...
Mountains, steeples, trees, and a plane!!

We then headed the other way to the town center and check food options on the way (but perhaps with a predetermined choice in mind).  We arrived at our “destination”, and having enjoyed McDonalds, Bill is able to check off another country!  😊  Since the walk down was mostly downhill, and mostly expensive stores (selling watches and jewelry), we took the bus back up the hill.

Man-made and God made peaks.

Still hang gliding season!
(Also still swimming season as we saw a family
getting out of the water, and it was 43F!)

Theresa says there are colors here.

Our balcony is right under the one you see on the "third" floor.

I asked for ice.  She said,
"ice cream?, or ice?"

Layers.

The sun sets and the lights come out.

The glow reminds us of a Kincaid painting.

Where or where shall we dine?

Since we have a balcony, we decided to step out to see if it was a nice spot to enjoy our beer and take in the scene.  Turns out it really didn’t take long as there wasn’t much of a view by that time of the night!

In honor of "Boxing Day", we ate out of 
"boxes".  That box of leaves is NOT mine!

Toiling away under the moonlight to bring you a blog!  :-)