Today was another train day.  We’re took InterCity Express trains from Zurich to Hanover and then onward to Berlin.  Both Valerie and I are worn out by the pace of this trip.  Hopefully, a rest day in Berlin will help us recover.

While reading WikiTravel, I discovered that tap water is not served in restaurants in Germany.  This is a bit disappointing since tap water is usually our beverage of choice.  To see what all the fuss was about, I tried some of the tap water at our hotel.  It tasted almost as bad as the Bath Spa water.  I think it may actually be worse than San Jose water.  Luckily, there’s a Kaiser supermarket across the street that sells 1.5L bottles of water for less than a euro.

Today, we rode two different scenic rail lines on our way to Zurich.  First, we took the Golden Pass panoramic train from Interlaken to Lucerne.  Then, we rode the Wilhelm Tell Express across Lake Lucerne to Fluelen then another train to Bellinzona.  One interesting feature of the Wilhelm Tell Express 1st class train cars is that the seats can be swivelled by pressing buttons on the chair.  The swivel chairs reminded me of something an evil genius would sit in while stroking a white cat and cursing James Bond.

Everything is Zurich is unexpectedly expensive.  I haven’t seen prices this high since Oslo.  Even in the remote mountainous regions of Berner Overland, prices were much less than they are here.  I’m beginning to see why Rick Steves seems to dislike this city.

We took the Rick Steves journey up to Schilthorn today. Schilthorn’s main claim to fame is being the location for the many ski chase scenes in the James Bond movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. We started our journey in Lauterbrunnen, took the gondola to Grutschalp, walked to Murren, took the gondolas to Schilthorn and back down to Stechelberg, took a bus to Trummelbach Falls, and then walked back to Lauterbrunnen. Schilthorn was pretty, but there was no snow. Trummelbach Falls, which boasts 10 cascading waterfalls, is quite spectacular and definitely worth a visit for those staying in Berner Oberland. On the walk back, we saw a a great number of cows wearing large Swiss cowbells. Despite what the commercials say, the cows in Switzerland seem a lot happier than the cows in California.

Switzerland is beautiful. It was too dark to see last night, but the rivers that flow between Interlaken and Unterseen are an amazing turquoise. I wanted to walk up and touch the 2 degree Celsius water, but I was deterred by the many signs warning about how glacier water can be deadly (they neglected to mention why). On the advice of Chris, we took a train to see the Aareschlucht, a river gorge located just outside of Meiringen. The walk along the schlucht is about a kilometer or two long and mostly handicap accessible (a feature that I value in hiking trails).

Afterward, we tried to visit the Swiss open air museum near Brienz, but gave up after it started raining heavily. Instead, we ate at a Swiss restaurant for dinner and headed back to the hotel to get some rest and book some hotels for Berlin and Prague.

From the hustle and bustle of Paris, we took a train to the relatively quiet Swiss city of Interlaken in Berner Oberland.  Interlaken, as the name suggests, is located between two lakes (Brienz and Thun).  We’re staying in a bed and breakfast called Hotel Rossli in Unterseen run by an incredibly helpful man named Chris, his wife, and his father.  I’m not sure if all the hotels in the Interlaken area have such incredible service, but if you are ever here, Hotel Rossli is a great place to stay.