On our first day in Interlaken, I saw an advertisement for the Schilthorn--a peak not far at all from the town, but challenging to get to because of the stark altitude change from Interlaken (at around 1,800 feet) to the top of the mountain (almost 10,000 feet). But it wasn't the height that caught my attention--it was its fame for being an integral part of a 1969 007 movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." The movie was almost exclusively filmed at a rotating restaurant that had just been opened on top of the Schilthorn only two years before, and the movie culminates in a fight scene that breaks out in that restaurant and on skis all the way down the slope.

Having grown up watching old James Bond movies at my grandmother's, I immediately went running to Ryan while blurting something along the lines of "RYANRYANRYAN THERE'S A ROTATING RESTAURANT WHERE JAMES BOND WAS--" right as Ryan gave me a very Ryan look and said "Yes yes, surprise, we have a reservation for brunch there." (I actually cried.)

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.

After hearing promises of rain and storms for the next day, we decided to sleep in (note: 8 AM) and take it easy on our second day in Interlaken. We had a slow morning in the B&B, went back to the espresso machine one or two times too many, and eventually found our way to Barracuda--a grill just up the street that offered free wifi and great chorizo paninis. It was here that Ryan got to try his first Haarige Kuh brew (see end of previous post), which he loved. Hoping for a different response from Barracuda's owner than from Barrel the night before, he asked if they had a tasting room. The owner shrugged, said Glynn (one of the head brewers) was a friend of hers, and called him on his cell right then and there. A few minutes later, we had a scheduled visit down in our calendar to swing by their brewing warehouse and meet both head brewers.

So in a nutshell, our day comprised working, answering e-mails, catching up on photos and blog posts, and...getting a personal tour of a microbrewery that isn't even open to the public, and tasting beers that had only just been bottled (they hadn't even entered the market). Andy and Glynn were excellent hosts and walked us through the brewing process from a more scientific perspective, which I (as less of a beer person than Ryan) really appreciated, and we left an hour later with a few bottles clinking in our backpacks.

We started our day bright and early on a train from Bern to Interlaken, which was a decently scenic ride through rural Swiss towns, each seemingly competing for the tallest Protestant steeple in the country. (Joke's on them: the tallest steeple is that of the Berner Münster, mentioned in our previous post, in the heart of Bern. But really...these steeples were insane.)

Our train ride took us along the southern banks of the Thunersee (the Sea of Thun) to Interlaken, named for its cozy settlement between two lakes--the Sea of Thun and the Brienzersee (Sea of Brienz). Shockingly, the two cities on either end of these lakes are Thun (to the west) and Brienz (to the east).

We checked into our bed and breakfast, where the owner was a little too excited that we were from Arizona. We quickly found out that Scottsdale is one of Interlaken's few sister cities, which is such a statement for Interlaken that they have signs pointing southwest around the city, informing drivers and pedestrians alike that Scottsdale is only 9,257.61 kilometers away.