So I was able to check out Berne and Murten two days ago. The weather forecast for that day was still looking bad and was clearly not a good day for mountain hiking, so I caught an early train from Interlaken and headed to Murten first. It was a cute little medieval town about 90 minutes away. It was quite, but very small. I had the whole town covered in an hour. After that, I backtracked through Berne, the Swiss capital. Berne was definitely the most interesting city I’ve seen in Switzerland yet. It’s an extremely attractive city. It’s maintained a lot of its medieval architecture, is largely traffic-free due to the efficient trams that are buzzing all over the place, and is very compact and walkable. I caught a lunch at an old-school Swiss place about two blocks away from the parliament building. There appeared to be a couple power lunches going on while I was there. I had the typical mix of meats (in this case veal, liver, and kidneys) in a mushroom cream sauce with rosti that appears to be a standard fixture at places serving classic Swiss cuisine. It was good, although not nearly as good as the version I had the night before in Interlaken with pork and morels.
After lunch, I walked around for a couple hours, checking out the town. For a while, the sky had apparently cleared up as I could see the mountains near Interlaken 30 miles away, clear as could be. The mountain was giving me the finger again. Fortunately, it only lasted for about an hour and clouded up again, as I would have been seriously pissed at the Swiss weather service had I wasted a good hiking weather day in the city.
Wednesday was my last shot. I got up in the morning, and saw the sun peeking out and was hopeful. I made my way up the mountain but it was cloudy and raining by the time I got there. That ended up being the pattern for the rest of the day. Sometimes the sun would come out and small parts of the mountain view I was there to see would poke out in small pockets behind the clouds, the rest of the time it was completely clouded over. The side of valley I was hiking on this day had a lift to its highest peak where you supposedly had great views of the three big peaks on the other side of the valley, but I never took it up. While from time to time you had partial visibility in the lower part of the mountain I was on, it seemed that the higher altitudes were completely shrouded. The high-altitude lifts here are actually very expensive (this one would have been about an $80 round trip), so I asked a couple people returning from the peak and they confirmed—you couldn’t see jack up there.
I finished the day by hiking to the small mountain town of Gimmelwald. Most of the towns in the area had long ago gone touristy and been overdeveloped, but Gimmelwald avoided this by apparently pulling some strings to get a bogus avalanche zoning restriction, keeping the big developers out of town. They do see some tourism, having a couple hostels with a couple people selling stuff out of their houses (one was selling fresh alpine milk which I was dying to try, but unfortunately she wasn’t home at the time). It had a pretty amazing setting, with a 400 meter tall sheer cliff on the other side of the valley dominating the view. My guidebook had actually recommended sleeping here, although I’m glad I stayed in Interlaken. While Gimmelwald was a great place to visit, it’s a little too slow, small, and rustic, and had way too many cow pies laying around for me to want to stay there for 4 full nights.
This morning, then, I caught the train out of town. Wouldn’t you know, it turned out to be a perfect hiking day with a nice, sunny, clear sky. I looked at the mountain at the end of the valley as I was walking to the train station, and there it was, giving me the finger again. Unfortunately, my plans aren’t changeable as I’m catching up with my friend Laure in Geneva this evening, and staying any longer would mean that I’d miss out on seeing her (not to mention having to eat my $110 hotel reservation on Lake Geneva). I wasn’t really in the mood for repeating either of the hikes I had taken on the two days I was there, anyways. The hikes were still nice. I got to see all the wildflowers and the fields filled with cows, tingling with the sound of dozens of cowbells, the little alpine towns, and got to see enough partial hints of the scenery that I was able to piece together the whole thing in my mind. In the 4 days though, I never once got the big panorama scene that is really the whole point of coming here. I can’t help feeling a little robbed. I guess that’s how it goes, sometimes. Next time I’m traveling and doing something so dependent on the weather, I guess I can try to build even more flexibility into my schedule.
After lunch, I walked around for a couple hours, checking out the town. For a while, the sky had apparently cleared up as I could see the mountains near Interlaken 30 miles away, clear as could be. The mountain was giving me the finger again. Fortunately, it only lasted for about an hour and clouded up again, as I would have been seriously pissed at the Swiss weather service had I wasted a good hiking weather day in the city.
Wednesday was my last shot. I got up in the morning, and saw the sun peeking out and was hopeful. I made my way up the mountain but it was cloudy and raining by the time I got there. That ended up being the pattern for the rest of the day. Sometimes the sun would come out and small parts of the mountain view I was there to see would poke out in small pockets behind the clouds, the rest of the time it was completely clouded over. The side of valley I was hiking on this day had a lift to its highest peak where you supposedly had great views of the three big peaks on the other side of the valley, but I never took it up. While from time to time you had partial visibility in the lower part of the mountain I was on, it seemed that the higher altitudes were completely shrouded. The high-altitude lifts here are actually very expensive (this one would have been about an $80 round trip), so I asked a couple people returning from the peak and they confirmed—you couldn’t see jack up there.
I finished the day by hiking to the small mountain town of Gimmelwald. Most of the towns in the area had long ago gone touristy and been overdeveloped, but Gimmelwald avoided this by apparently pulling some strings to get a bogus avalanche zoning restriction, keeping the big developers out of town. They do see some tourism, having a couple hostels with a couple people selling stuff out of their houses (one was selling fresh alpine milk which I was dying to try, but unfortunately she wasn’t home at the time). It had a pretty amazing setting, with a 400 meter tall sheer cliff on the other side of the valley dominating the view. My guidebook had actually recommended sleeping here, although I’m glad I stayed in Interlaken. While Gimmelwald was a great place to visit, it’s a little too slow, small, and rustic, and had way too many cow pies laying around for me to want to stay there for 4 full nights.
This morning, then, I caught the train out of town. Wouldn’t you know, it turned out to be a perfect hiking day with a nice, sunny, clear sky. I looked at the mountain at the end of the valley as I was walking to the train station, and there it was, giving me the finger again. Unfortunately, my plans aren’t changeable as I’m catching up with my friend Laure in Geneva this evening, and staying any longer would mean that I’d miss out on seeing her (not to mention having to eat my $110 hotel reservation on Lake Geneva). I wasn’t really in the mood for repeating either of the hikes I had taken on the two days I was there, anyways. The hikes were still nice. I got to see all the wildflowers and the fields filled with cows, tingling with the sound of dozens of cowbells, the little alpine towns, and got to see enough partial hints of the scenery that I was able to piece together the whole thing in my mind. In the 4 days though, I never once got the big panorama scene that is really the whole point of coming here. I can’t help feeling a little robbed. I guess that’s how it goes, sometimes. Next time I’m traveling and doing something so dependent on the weather, I guess I can try to build even more flexibility into my schedule.
