We are going to let the photos do all the talking today but we will add a few facts for you. We rode 30k’s in unpredictably lovely biking weather along secondary roads. We followed the shore of Lake Brienz for most of the day going up, up and up hills with a final down at the end of the day. The scenery more than made up for the struggle.
What we saw and discovered today you would of missed by car unless you had read up about it before. Lake Brienz is the deepest and cleanest lake in Switzerland and known for the stunning scenery. At times it was very tempting to jump into when on the up sections.
Our first stop was outside the Hotel Royal St George where we stayed last time – nice to reminisce of our days gone by.
The start of the ride along Lake Brienz.
We liked how the cloud hung low in the valley.
Looking back to where we had just come from.
Just a brief aside – we find the Swiss money extremely colourful and a lot of it does not go far. Would put the cost of travel on a par with Norway.
We did a side trip to this gorgeous little town called Iseltwald on the lake and dropped in for a coffee. Met a kiwi couple who we chatted with for a while and who kindly took a rare photo of the two of us together. You may be wondering why we are dressed up looking like fluorescent liquorice all sorts. The reason is that we are cycling on secondary roads and though not a lot of traffic we need to be highly visible. So far we have passed more tractors than cars. Talking of farming, all the holdings look very small and we feel they must be very heavily subsidized.
You can catch a ferry up the length of the lake but this would disqualify us for bragging rites regarding riding across Switzerland. There must be a substantial geographical impediment before we are allowed to use alternative transport.
Just a random cutesy picture.
No translation required!!!! It really wasn’t that steep.
We then happened upon these waterfalls called the Giesseach Falls. You can see a bridge about half way up and just behind that is where the below photo was taken.
Spectacular to say the least.
The view from behind the falls.
We then turned back to the lake and found this gem.
Even though we had already had our coffee for the day we felt we couldn’t go past this opportunity. You can catch the ferry from Interlaken to here and then you catch a cable car up to the hotel.
It all reminds us of the Somerset Maughan era.
We then went for a coffee and this is the view we had to tolerate!!! Oh well, guess someone has to do it.
Once we left the lake we rode a further 10k up into a valley to the town of Meiringen. The one and only disappointing item of the day is that there is an Air Force base at Interlaken and Brienz and we were buzzed most of the day by military jets and helicopters. It certainly subdued the ambience of the day.
So into Meiringen we rode looking for our bed for the night. Now when choosing our accommodation for Switzerland we gave ourselves a budget of $200CAD per night which should get us three star digs. Last night in Interlaken was great but when we got to Meiringen and we saw Gasthous Ad-er we had a sinking feeling – not sure where the L disappeared to.
That sinking feeling continued with us all the way up the stairs to our musty, ugly, nasty room. Blessing that we are only here for one evening!!!! Can’t get all of the right even when you research like crazy.
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