We woke up facing yet another cold, rainy day, which meant our original plans to take a boat across the Sea of Thun transformed into a plan to take the Eurail as much as humanly possible throughout the day. Our four-country Eurail passes allow for eight days of travel, which means once you take one train on one of those eight days, you can ride as many trains as you want that day--all for free (and as long as you don't go outside your originally planned four countries). We still had one day to spare, so we decided that if were heading the mere 45-minute journey up to Thun, we might as well ride wherever our hearts led us throughout the day...and with the rain clouds rolling in, there was no telling where that might be.
Thun is a small town on one far end of the Sea of Thun (Thunersee), the lake to the west of Interlaken. It boasts two castles--Thun Castle, atop a hill in the heart of the city, and Oberhofen Castle along its northeastern banks, in what used to be a separate village. It was clear when we arrived that something was off: As small as Thun might be, there was no excuse for the ratio of closed to open shops along its main streets and plazas. For every open store, there were more than a dozen closed ones; café windows were dark, awnings were pulled back (even in the pouring rain), street parking was empty. We trudged through the rain, grateful for our $5 umbrellas from a Coop in Bern, glancing into shop windows and at restaurant menus. It felt like a ghost town.
And truthfully, we should have given a second thought to the degree of emptiness we saw while walking through (an equally cold and rainy) Interlaken from our B&B to the train station. Throughout that 25-minute walk, we didn't see a single soul. No one seemed to be up.
Turns out that much of Europe, including Central Europe and Scandinavia, observes Whit Monday--that is, the Monday following Whit Sunday. It almost felt like the country had put itself on hold for 24 hours, and although the rain may have been a contributing factor, we saw so few people throughout that day that it felt almost eerie.
Luckily, Thun Castle was open. We toured its exterior, made our way up four floors of history exhibitions on Thun's various battles and leaders, Switzerland's flags and military attire, and archaeological evidence that the castle was built atop ancient Roman ruins from the first and second centuries AD. My favorite part of the castle was the view offered by its turrets, which looked out from its hilltop estate over the city and sea. The ceilings were even just tall enough to allow Ryan to stand up straight, and only barely brush the top of his head. (This is a big deal for old buildings.) Before we left, we stopped through the Stadtkirke (State Church), which--although it was built in 1330--has been renovated so many times that it looks and smells like an IKEA project built five years ago. Its bell tower, with its massive clocks, gears, and tomb coverings, was much more our style.
We took a bus to Oberhofen just a few miles away, and after finding closed restaurant after closed restaurant, finally made our way to the castle just off the sea. (In fact, it has a neat turret located in the sea itself; it sits on a stone column sunk directly into the Thunersee.) Luckily, while trying to find the best view of the castle, we stumbled upon a pier directly next to the castle walls...and saw signs for lunch. The pier's restaurant--which must have once been used for selling tickets, as hinted by the haphazard addition of cooking instruments throughout the interior space--was small and cozy, and we opened the door without even glancing at the signs before sitting down. The owners, who were the only other people inside, glanced up in curiosity, said hello, and kept chatting between themselves...and after 10 minutes of sitting there, we finally edged forward to ask if we could order.
Turns out that restaurant, like all the others, was closed for the holiday. The owners were too kind to even tell us to leave, so they'd let us sit there and look out at the water without complaint. We were incredibly lucky that after we realized our mistake, they still offered to cook us food--just with the understanding that it would take a while. Otherwise, I have no idea what we would have done for food that day.
So we had a small meat pie and a creamy plate of gnocchi before setting out again for the castle, which--shocker--was closed. We wandered several times around its perimeter, toured its seaside gardens, and read the small plaques on its different trees and wildlife before giving in to the rain and boarding the next bus back to Thun.
By that point, we were cold, wet, and still had half a day to spare on Eurail tickets. It was 2:30 PM, and we weren't ready to head back to an equally deserted Interlaken. So with no knowledge whatsoever of what we were getting ourselves into, we boarded the next train to Luzern, which was a scenic route through the UNESCO Biosphäre Entlebuch (almost like a nature reserve in the Swiss countryside).
It's worthy of note that Rick Steves doesn't recommend Luzern or Zürich...but then again, by the way he writes about Interlaken, it seems pretty clear that he wouldn't recommend it to visitors, either. But as small, conservative, and incredibly touristy as Interlaken was, we have to say that we all but fell in love with Luzern within minutes. Even on Whit Monday, it was so much more urban while still maintaining a sense of a small, walkable town centered around a beautiful river. The streets were filled with locals, restaurants were open, swans were coasting under covered bridges built in the 1400s, and old battlements and military towers spoke to a level of history that was nowhere to be found in Interlaken.
We stopped inside the Jesuitenkirche, one of Luzern's most famous Protestant churches, and listened to ferocious organ-playing while touring its Rococo interior. It was as we headed down the banks of the river that I saw a towering hill in the distance with a white, castle-like building nestled in the uppermost level of forest. The HOLLYWOOD-esque letters just beneath it read "GÜTSCH"...and that's all we knew before heading in that direction. At the very least, we knew this so-called Chateau Gütsch would offer incredible views of a city that we had only seen within a 5-minute radius of its central train station.
The climb was exhausting, but thankfully shaded by some of the tallest trees we'd seen in Switzerland. We passed snails, slugs, and (very friendly) cats as we wound up staircase after staircase. At the top, we found hiking trails through forests so tall and green that they might have been paintings, and it came as no surprise that several of these trails led right to the Chateau.
The most important thing to know about the Gütsch is that it's a random hotel on the nicest hill of Luzern with an insane amount of obvious wealth and a sitting parlor so beautiful that I had to check my facial expression when I walked in. (The bartender was looking me over like he knew I didn't belong there. The sweat might have tipped him off; the chateau had its own funicular up the mountainside, which we couldn't ride without a ticket.)
But most importantly of all, it was from the Gütsch terrace that we first laid eyes on Luzern's twisting string of an old wall, interspersed with tower after tower as it wound its way up the next highest hill in town. And even better, we could see small specks that were definitely humans walking along those walls.
So it was there that we headed next.
We took the Gütschbahn back down the mountain and headed straight for the start of the wall. Every tower and section of wall was open to the public, so we wound our way up staircases (to reach a total of 92 floors climbed, according to our Apple Watches...two days later, our legs are complaining pretty loudly) and along the grassy hillsides, looking up at the ramparts. We passed by real-life haarige kuh (hairy cows, the inspiration for Interlaken's microbrewery mentioned in the previous two posts), and finished walking along the wall just in time to head back to the train station before the last train departed for Interlaken.
This return trip was one of our favorites throughout our time in Europe. If you imagine a clock where Interlaken is at the 6:00 position, the Sea of Thun stretches from 6:00 to 8:00. Thun sits at 8:00, and we then took the train from 8:00 to 2:00 (Luzern), going clockwise through the UNESCO site.
But for our return trip, it obviously made the most sense to take a train from 2:00 back down to 6:00, again going clockwise--which took us along a part of Berne-Oberland that we'd had yet to see. From 4:00 to 6:00, for example, ran the Sea of Brienz (Brienzersee), the twin lake to the Thun; but what's more, this particular leg of the journey came with such huge changes in elevation that the journey took seven minutes longer than if we'd just gone all the way from Luzern to Interlaken, going counterclockwise through Bern and Thun.
It was the elevation change that made all the difference, because it was on this ride that we were offered some of the most beautiful views of our lives. The sun was setting through the day's storm clouds, which offered a yellow-green light of the entire valley far below. We passed by waterfall after waterfall, each one emptying into long stretches of green valleys and lakes. We even saw the famous Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock fell to his supposed death in the original books and the movie series. (The rooftop episode of the BBC series is even named "Reichenbach" in the falls' honor.)
In short, if the views are so good that Ryan Downey has his face pressed flat against the window and is repeating "Jesus Christ--Jesus Christ, did you see--Jesus!" for a solid hour, it's a damn good train ride.
I'm convinced that the valley surrounding Meiringen is one of the most beautiful valleys in the world.
We arrived in Interlaken just in time to catch some beautiful clear skies and a sunset framing a snowy, golden Jungfrau peak--the "Top of Europe," as it's erroneously called. (Europe has many taller peaks.) We stood in the middle of Interlaken's main stretch--completely empty, with every store and restaurant dark and desolate--and just looked out at the alps and the perfect sky. You'd have guessed that it hadn't rained a drop in weeks, but even though that was false, we were okay with how the day's events turned out.
