If I had to choose a country to live in, without any worry about money/job/etc., Switzerland would be IT! Seriously, Interlaken was UNREAL. I felt like I was in a fairytale the whole trip!!
Switzerland was actually the trip I’ve been most looking forward to for a while. Interlaken was the breath of fresh air I desperately needed; figuratively and literally. As much as I love exploring new cities, I was in desperate need of some fresh air and to be outdoors, and not some car fumes and cigarette smoke filled cities.
And Switzerland did not disappoint!
I flew out at 6:20am after saying goodbye to my family the night before. Mackenzie and I flew out together, but we split up once we got into Switzerland. She stayed in Geneva, while I immediately went to the train station to meet up with Marion to continue on to Bern and then to Interlaken. Since we couldn’t check in to our hostel until 3pm and we started our day super early, we stopped in Bern for lunch and to check it out a little bit.
Bern was so cute! A river with the bluest waters ran through the city. And Bern was so cute!! It reminded me of Prague in some ways, with all different colored buildings and random statues and designs on the walls and ceilings. We ate lunch outside in the sun, which was sooo nice to be able to do. Then we just kinda walked around, following the river. We stumbled upon an “animal park”, where some bears were wrestling with each other which was kinda cool to see!!
Then we continued on our way to Interlaken after a few hours! Interlaken....man what a cute and outdoorsy city. The most tallest mountains, the bluest river, the friendliest people, the beautiful sunshine. Interlaken has it all going on. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and immediately left in hopes of putting our feet in the river.
We just walked along the river with the most turquoise colored water I’ve ever see on one side of the trail, and mountains and fields and cows on the other side. My whole heart. And we did stick our feet in the freeeeezing cold water (more like a toe from me). It was so nice to have a semi-relaxing day with no real plan in mind, but also doing something. Just enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company. That night we walked around the downtown area, getting dinner and people watching.
Interlaken is probably the most diverse city I’ve been to. There’s a lot of people from India and Nepal and the Middle East, on top of white people (especially older, retired people). And tons and tons of Asian tourists.
Easter Sunday was a bit different this year. Instead of a ham dinner, I had a ham and cheese sandwich. Instead of an egg hunt, I went hunting for the next trail marker. Instead of attending church, I was out in nature. But honestly, I always feel closer to God when I’m out in nature admiring His creation. And that’s what it’s truly all about, right??
For our hike, we took a train from Interlaken to Grindelwald. From there, we started our hike up, up, up. We went past Grund and Mannlichen before ending in Kleine Scheidegg. The closer we got to the top, the colder it got and the more snow there was on the path. And yup, we were hiking in leggings and tennis shoes. Really smart of us! We originally were going to hike to Lauterbrunnen, but the wind started picking up and our feet were freezing by the time we got to Kleine Scheidegg. We still ended up hiking 13.1 miles (21.1 km) though!! From there, we took a train back to Interlaken and basically died once we got back to the hostel.
The VIEW though. Absolutely incredible. The mountains just left me in awe all day; I never got over the massive size of them. They seemed huge when we first started hiking, but they just kept getting bigger and bigger as we hiked on. Some of the rock in parts of them looked so fake too; it was the craziest but prettiest thing ever.
On Monday, we slept in a little bit to recover from our hike before heading up to Harder Kulm. Harder Kulm is known as the “top of Interlaken” - in other words, it’s the highest peak in the city. And boy, did the view not disappoint!! It was BEAUTIFUL up there. You were able to see both rivers - Lütschine River and Abeb River - along with all the mountain peaks in the area. Absolutely stunning. We took the cable car up “for the experience”, and hiked the mountain down.
Once we came down, Marion wasn’t feeling well so she rested for the rest of the day while I went out to explore Interlaken some more. I went out by myself and walked all around the city, found some lunch, took tons of pictures, did some people watching, and poked around in some shops. It was honestly so nice having some alone time after constantly being with people for a few weeks.
After doing some exploring, I went out on a run. I ran on the same path Marion and I went on the first day with the river to one side and mountains on the other. I even stopped to see some cows and one even came over to say hi to me. Honestly best part of my day! Also, the cows in Switzerland really do have bells around their neck so they all sound like one big wind chime constantly going off. It was so beautiful, with their bells and the view.
On Tuesday, I jump started the day by running down a mountain and went paragliding at 7am!!! Coolest. experience. ever. I was so excited/nervous that I woke up at 5:30am and never fell back asleep. It was seriously the best thing seeing Interlaken from above. My pilot, Tim, was super cool too! He kept making the joke “oh this is my second time paragliding! Hopefully it goes good!” Hahah but seriously, he was so cool. We were in the air for a little bit, and even spun and did a “roller coaster” ride. I got lucky too; the wind was too unpredictable so that was the only time they were going to go up in the air today.
After coming back from paragliding and checking out of the hostel, I decided to head out to explore Lauterbrunnen, Grütschalp, and Mürren. Back on Sunday, I had bought a 3-day transportation ticket and I was determined to get as much use from it as I could before leaving!
Lauterbrunnen was a quiet, small town. Besides mountains, there were also waterfalls everywhere, which made it kinda magical. Being only a 20-minute train ride from Interlaken, I think it’s more of a residential town than a touristy town. Or maybe that was just me. Nonetheless, beautiful town! And such nice people!
There was honestly nothing at Grütschalp. I took a cable car up there, and it was just the switch from there to a train to get to Mürren. But the view was gorgeous. As always.
Mürren was a sleepy town. A lot of stores were closed until May; I’m thinking maybe because of the snow there? But the view. THE VIEW. Seriously, it just kept getting better and better the higher up I went. The mountains were GINORMOUS! Just...incredible. Simply incredible. At one point, I was literally left speechless. All I could think was “is this even REAL?!” The mountains were so huge and so beautiful that they literally looked fake. That’s the only way I could describe them honestly.
I was planning on going to a couple more spots, but I was honestly exhausted by that point. So I headed back to Interlaken and met up with Marion back at the hostel. We hung out on the terrace for a bit before grabbing our bags and heading to the train station to go back to Brussels. Heading back at 20:05 is nice because I got to explore some more, but also annoying to wait around to leave. Also because we weren’t getting back until 9:35am Wednesday morning. Yay.
But....seriously Switzerland was so so so good. And SO needed. Overall, I walked 44 miles (about 71 km) in the 4 days we were there. And I ate good food. Was one with nature. Got to see some cows. Switzerland is a solid 12/10 in my books.
I took over 1000 pictures JUST in Switzerland (don't worry, I only share about half of them), so you should definitely check out alllllll my lovely pictures from this trip :)
Check out my pictures from Bern here.
Check out all my pictures from Interlaken here.
Check out all my pictures from Lauterbrunnen, etc. here.
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