Interlaken

Switzerland

November 14th-17th

I never planned to visit Switzerland before I actually booked the trip. The reason that I went really was because I had the opportunity to go for only 99€, who could turn down a trip for that cheap? um no one. I didn't really know what to expect when I decided to go to Interlaken. All I really knew about Switzerland was that the Swiss Alps were there. That made it kind of exciting though because I wasn't sure what to expect. 

We arrived in Interlaken in the middle of the night on Friday morning. It was about a six hour bus ride so we got there at like 3am. That gave us time to sleep a little and then wake up and be ready for the day Friday morning. When we woke up the first thing I did was look out the window. Since we arrived at night, I didn't get a chance to see how beautiful it actually was until morning. Even with the insane amount of fog covering the mountains the landscapes of the alps were breathtaking. I couldn't believe how beautiful the city was. When I went down for breakfast I realized that we were staying in the a replica of the hotel in the movie "The Shining," the hostel was really old and rustic. It was cool in it's own way and creepy at the same time. The main selling point for tour companies for Interlaken is the "extreme sport" activities. The main activities that you can do in Interlaken is sky dive, canyon jump, ski/snowboard, horseback ride, ice skate, and sled. Unfortunately we picked the worst weekend to travel there because there was a lot of wind and lack of snow so no activities were open. We still managed though. I overall had a lot of fun there and it was a pretty relaxing weekend. 

After breakfast on Friday morning, the whole group went on a walking tour of Interlaken. Like I previously stated, the city is so beautiful. It is a pretty small town with a whole lot of character. As we went on the walking tour, I was amazed. The small town feel was so cute, I couldn't get over it. We walked through the whole city and saw the river, the water was ice blue. Everything about the city from the water to the alps in the distance was so pure and perfect. I recommend going to Interlaken for the outside type. There is hiking trails and just so many places to explore. Side note though, Switzerland is extremely expensive. The activities vary from 100-500 Swiss Franc, which is almost worth the same amount of the US Dollar. We went to Hooters after the walking tour for lunch and we spent amount 30 CHF a person, which is clearly a lot for lunch. I don't want that to keep anyone from going but just a heads up to budget for that portion of your trip to cost a little more. After Hooters, we went back to the hostel to nap for a little bit before going out that night, we were really tired from not getting much sleep from the night before. After a short nap we woke up and got ready and went to a Swiss chocolate tasting. I love chocolate and I have never been to a tasting so I was pretty excited to go. We went to this  little chocolate shop in the city, it was really cute. After a million kinds of weird chocolate we headed back to the hostel to hang out for the night. We had to get up early the next morning to head to Bern for the day so we spent the night in the hostel lobby just relaxing and talking. 

Saturday morning we woke up pretty early to head to Bern for the day. I didn't really know what to expect from Bern either. I knew it was going to be a somewhat bigger city than Interlaken but that was all I really figured. The coolest thing about the city is that they have real live bears on display because Bern translates in bear in German. The bears looked a little sad being locked up like that but they were still cute. The first thing we did after looking at the bears was head to Starbucks, but of course! After we got our Starbucks, which was like 9 dollars might I add, we went and explored the market there. I was in need of a beanie because it was pretty cold out and they are really stylish in Europe in the winter time. We spend the next couple hours just walking around and getting lost in the city. The architecture of Bern is really pretty, it reminded me a lot of Germany. There is a famous clock tower there and that was our navigating point. We went back and had some really good tacos, of all things, from a stand in the market area. We spent lunch sitting on a bench in the town square just taking everything in. The city center was filled with many different types of people. The vibe I got the from city was a seriously powerful one. I was so glad I decided to check it out for the day. We decided to just walk around more in the narrow side streets and we took some pictures by some bear statues for about an hour too long. We stopped at the grocery store in the city to buy booze to pre-game with because it was a lot cheaper than in Interlaken. We caught the bus around 4 to head back for the night. Like I said before, I really liked the city of Bern! 

When we got back into Interlaken we went and got and got ready for the night and went and had swiss fondue at a famous restaurant called Bebbi's. Let me tell you, that was an experience. Bebbi himself works there and he is such an animated person. He hooked us up with a really good deal and he was a joy to have around. We had a three course meal with three different types of fondues and it was so good. After dinner, we headed to the hostel to pre-game a little before we went out. We didn't have a fridge so we chilled our booze on the balcony and it worked out perfect. After about an hour we headed to a bar called The Three Tells. It had a similar feel as the bars we went to in Florence so that was nice. We stayed there until bar close hanging out with some of the guides on the trip, after that we headed to a club in the basement of the hostel called Balmer's. It reminded me a lot of a middle school dance with a bar in a sense but it was still cool I guess. After the club we headed back to our hostel and then called it a night. 

The next morning myself, two of my roommates, my friend Sam and a few other people went and had coffee and breakfast at this little cafe in the city. We were there for a few hours talking and hanging out until we headed back to the hostel to get our stuff together to check out. When we were done we decided to head back to The Three Tells to have a beer in the middle of the day. It was great. We stopped at this little restaurant to get a yummy wrap to go for the bus ride back and then hung out in the hostel lobby for awhile. A little bit later we headed back on the bus for a short bus ride back to Florence. 

I was really happy that I decided to visit Interlaken for the weekend. Even though we didn't get to do any cool activities, it was still nice just relaxing in a cool location for the weekend.