Interlaken, Switzerland

24 hours in Interlaken, ready GO!

We got to Interlaken West Train Station at about 5p.m., there, we exchanged money into Swiss Francs and headed to our hostel, the world famous Balmer’s. Will and I managed to pick up a backpacker, Liam, along the way who was staying at the same hostel as us. All together this made 20 people trying to check in at once (way to travel in a pack, JMU). When we arrived, the people working front desk let us know it was currently 2-for1 happy hour at the hostel bar, so we headed out back to hang out for a while and slowly check in.

Balmer’s was so nice- definitely famous for a reason!! It had an outdoor bar, a hammock room, a club in the basement, decent beds and rooms, and cheap prices. (It also was the hostel suggested to us by Outdoor Interlaken, our skydiving company!) While sitting outside, we met some Americans from Cali who were studying in Barcelona for the semester. They had gone skydiving that morning and told us it was AMAZING. We were all super excited, and ended up spending the rest of the night hanging out, drinking and talking with people from all over the world. It was really nice to have people from America and Australia all around…people who are just traveling around like us, trying to see the most possible in the shortest amount of time possible. I actually met one of our skydiving instructors at the club and talked to him about the next day and he made me even more excited! After a long, crazy night, we headed to bed at about 2am to try and get some sleep.

The next morning, we woke up at about 6:30, and got ready to sky dive! We headed downstairs and tried to eat some of our free breakfast and relaxed until 8:30 when the bus from Outdoor Interlaken came to pick us up… (I’m going to dedicate an entire blog entry to skydiving…)

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We got back to the hostel at about noon. We met up with the rest of our group, and tried (but failed miserably) to explain how awesome of an experience we had. Then, Jeremy, Will, and I went next door to a restaurant for some traditional Swiss Fondue. Yum!! The cheese had a bit of wine in it for flavoring and the bread was delicious. It was a perfect warm meal for the chilly Alps.

It was only about 1:45 at this point, and our train to Milan wasn’t until 6pm or so, so we decided to rent bikes for a couple hours and see some of Interlaken. The three hour rental was not expensive at all (especially considering it was in francs, not Euros!) Will got a map and led us off into Interlaken towards one of the lakes. It was gorgeous!! The water was just as turquoise at eye level as it was from the airplane. It looked like it could have been Caribbean, and it was definitely cold!! We took pictures and explored some, then headed back towards the hostel a different route, past the train station we’d need to get to later in the afternoon (Interlaken Ost).

We took a break at the hostel, and then used the rest of the time with our bikes to go souvenir shopping. Finally, it was time to head to the train.

Interlaken was the most beautiful place I’ve been so far. The steady stream of people falling out of the sky was mesmerizing. From the moment we arrived until the time we boarded our departing train, we constantly saw parachutes floating down from the Alps. So far, this is definitely the number 1 place to on my “RETURN ASAP” list.