Camping in Interlaken, Switserland
In April / May 2003 we went camping for a week in Switserland. Interlaken is the place we were adviced to go to as it is beautilfully situated between lakes and mountains. The surroundings are like from a fairytale: cows with bells, snow, mountains, the real thing !
Inter-laken means as much as 'between the lakes' and that is indeed the case. exacly between the Thunersee and the Brienzersee with the Jungfrau mountains on the south side.
The green tent with the blue wind screen is where we slept... A small but comfortable camp site at a 20 minute walking distance from the city centre.
In the middle of the town is a big park with a lot of historical hotels. Depending on the wind the pilots choose either this or the 'normal' dropzone for paragliding. We both landed in this park. In the top right you can see Dominique approaching...
The camera attached to a rope allows you to make nice aereal pictures, but also from big heads... Below you see Interlaken and a piece of lake Brienz.
I was down earlier so I could film Dominique's flight and landing. Her landing was much more smooth than mine: we did some realy fast spirals which was very exciting!
Dominique a couple of seconds before touch-down in the park.
The three tallest mountains in the Berner Oberland region. The Jungfraujoch is an Unesco world heritage site. Via a (very expensive) train ride you can all the way to the top. We went, via Grindelwald, up to the Eiger Glacier (Station Kleine Scheidegg.) Here we had magnificent views.
Many different routes have been tried to climb the north face of the Eiger mountain, and not all of them were succesfull :-( It's almost completely vertical... On the right you can see the start of the long glacier.
Sunnt and still lot's of snow at this altitude (2165 m): not the best combination for hiking: it was very heavy. We decided to just enjoy !
Lake Brienz on our way to Ballenberg. Unbelievabl;e how clear the water is, and probably also really fresh as it's fresh melted snow from the mountains.
On the last day of our trip we went to th eopen-air-museum of Ballenberg where we saw many old buildings and traditions of Switserland. Nicely situated park.
A lot of wood was collected everywhere we went. On this picture above you can see the stacks in the back on the left.
Although these pictures are taken in Ballenberg we just had to look around near the campsite to see nice old houses and traditions from the small farmers. All cows had these famous bells around their neck. In the summertime they move to the Alp mountains.
If you ever decide to go to Switserland I can recommend Interlaken as it has the perfect combiniation of place, surroundings, facilities and traditions. Beforehand I did not expect to enjoy this all so much...
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