Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: Golden Pass back to Germany August 11th to August 21st

So our big walking trip is done. Our next big excursion is cycling from Bruge to Paris starting on 23rd August. Until then we are doing some touristy things around Switzerland and Germany, and also taking the opportunity to catch up with Candice. I have mentioned before that Beth and I tend to like travelling by train in Europe. It is not that we have a nerdy fascination with trains, it is just safer than driving (I would not trust myself with this right hand side of the road thing), and you get to see more than if you fly. Some time ago Beth read about a train trip in Switzerland called type Golden Pass Line and decided we needed to do it. It basically takes us from Montreux back through the country we just walked through. There are tourist trains which run regularly on this line and have panoramic viewing cars or classical old wooden carriages and cost a small fortune to travel on, but here are also the normal regional trains which run on the same tracks providing exactly the same views, and hauled by exactly the same locomotives, but at a fraction of the tourist train costs. The Swiss use these trains, and we decided for a few days we would be Swiss not tourists.

Whilst we still have wifi in Saanen we carefully plan the route to our hotel in Montreux. My German Vodafone works for calls in Switzerland, but not for data, so it is important to get a snapshot of the Google map instructions from the railway station to the hotel. On our last trip to Eurooe we printed all this stuff out before we left, but this time half our hotels we have booked whilst we are on the road (either ini Australia or Europe), so we haven't bothered with paper at all, and so far that is all working fine. We only have one night in Montreux, so we leave Saanen pretty early to make sure that we have enough time to check out some of Montreux's sights. As we get on the train we realize that this is the exact line we will be tavelling on the next day, which means we get to enjoy part of the experience twice.

The trip down into Montreux (which is on the Lake Geneva shore) is quite amazing as it involves switching back and forwards across the mountains and down towards the lake. The views of course are sensational, but the strangest thing is that some of these switchbacks happen in tunnels, so you go into the tunnel with a view of he lake on your left, and exit the tunnel with the lake on your right. A very strange sensation. Montreux is only a small city (25,000 people), but much bigger than we had been used to over the past couple of weeks, so it took us just a little while to adjust to being jostled at train stations again. The other thing we hadn't done for a couple of weeks is lug our suitcases around, so the obligatory European railway station stairs are ensuring that our upper bodies are now getting a bit of a workout as well as our legs.

After checking into our hotel (not in the best part of town, but comfortable, close to everything and decent wifi) we head out to do what we can in one afternoon in Montreux. The obvious main attraction of Montreux is the lake, so after checking out the town centre a little (including the statue of Freddie Mercury, who seems to have quite liked this town), we decide to take a walk about 4km out along the lake to the 12th century Chillon Castle (half price entry with our guest card). We then caught the bus (free with our guest card) to the neighboring old city of Vevey, about 5 Km out the other side of Montreux, where we wandered quite aimlessly, but happily (well Beth was happy, I am led to believe that I was actually a little grumpy - probably because a bit of a cold I had developed a few days earlier wasn't really improving). After seeking out the local Co-op to buy something for dinner, we caught the bus back to our hotel. I don't think that I have mentioned the Co-op before. This is a supermarket chain found throughout Switzerland. They are generally quite small, but carry a fantastic range of freshly made salads and nice breads at relatively reasonable prices. The Co-op has been the source of quite few lunches and hotel room dinners over the last couple of weeks. It may not sound a lot, but we actually squeezed quite a bit into the afternoon and landed back at the hotel quite weary. Perhaps we have overstated this hiking caper, and there is actually more exercise in being a basic tourist.

Interlaken is our next stop on the Golden Pass, and after zigzagging back up through the mountains and retracing our steps of the previous day, we head for the small town of Zweissemen, where we have to change trains. The transfer time is over an hour, so we decide to take our suitcases for a little walk around town, where we find a nice little cafe advertising coffee and cake. Needless to say we could not resist, so with suitcases piled up around our table (prime position ,with a view - which caused disdainful glances from some of the locals who had to take up lesser seats), we enjoyed one of the more pleasant such treats of our holiday thus far. Back onto the train and it whisks us to Interlaken, which is nestled between 2 lakes (surprising that) and only 30 Km from where we started our walk. Interlaken is also quite small with only about 5,000 permanent residents. But the permanent tourist population probably swells that to 25,000, so it is quite a bustling place.

The weather is most unkind to us after we arrive, and our activities are pretty much restricted to window shopping (I have never seen so many watches in my life), planning tomorrow's activities and eating dinner at a Mexican Restaurant (strange choice you say - yes, but it was the hotel restaurant, there was a discount, and going anywhere else meant a certain drenching). Beth told me that if it was the good day tomorrow that was forecast, she was keen to visit Heidi Klum, which we could do half price with our guest card. Naturally I was quite enthusiastic. That enthusiasm only dulled a little when she showed me the picture, not of Heidi Klum, but of Harder Kulm, a high view point above the town.

The next day was quite beautiful, so after breakfast, we decided that we would leave our cases at the hotel and spend the morning looking at Interlaken and taking the funicular up to Harder Kulm. Interlaken really is a gorgeous town, and the fact that it is infested by tourists only detracts from this beauty a little. It has an idyllic setting amongst lakes and mountains, and the town has lots of gardens cobbled streets and interesting architecture. Not quite as magical as Grindelwald but getting there. I think that Interlaken is a wonderful destination in its own right but the bulk of tourists use it as a base for their forays into the nearby Alps.

The funicular ride up to Harder Kulm puts all others we have encountered so far to shame. It is quite steep obviously, but also quite a long ascent, taking you up about 800m over a 1.2km journey. Once up the top you wander around the mountain to a restaurant (of course) and the Harder Kulm lookout, which is a pulpit built out from the rocks giving you a spectacular view of Interlaken and the mountain ranges beyond. This was particularly interesting for us, because we could see in one long vista all the mountains we had walked amongst during the past two weeks. True to form though, it was a beautiful day, but bothersome little clouds around some of the mountain tops prevented me from getting a photo of all these magnificent peaks exposed. Coffee and cake at the restaurant, and then time to head back down, collect our suitcases and head for the Bahnhof (it was the Gare in Montreux). We pop into the Co-op near Interlaken Ost railway station for a bite of lunch and spend only about 12 francs on a feast of bread and fruit. Still not cheap, but much better than we have encountered to date. The 1.5 litre bottle of iced tea was one fifth the price of our jug of tap water at Saanen. A beautiful place where you can afford to eat. Interlaken definitely goes onto the list of places worth coming back to.

The train ride from Interlaken to Lucerne is very nice again, and to our surprise we passed through another town that we had visited on our walk (Meiringen of Sherlock Holmes fame). In no time at all we are descending towards Lake Lucerne and it is time for us to farewell the Alps for now. Lucerne surprised me enormously. I expected an austere, grey town without much soul, but I could not have been further from the truth. It is vibrant, quite beautiful and very interesting. The little time that we had in Lucerne was spent wandering about the old city and along the river, where we saw ancient covered wooden bridges, beautiful churches, some really interesting architecture and magnificent old squares. Not enough time to properly get to know this city, but enough to pencil its name in the famous book of must returns.

Now it is time to leave Switzerland and head back to Germany. Although it has been undoubtedly more expensive than we would like, it has been fun. Our next stop is Freiburg, which you need to be very careful about, because there is a Freiburg in Germany, but also one in Switzerland (and one in France for that matter). It would be embarrassing ending up in the right town but wrong country. Luckily we kept our wits about us, but the insistent clarification from the railway ticket seller indicated to us that many people had actually done just this before.

Freiburg is a small university city with a big cathedral and a very nice "old city". Two nights here just to settle down a bit and get washing done. As is our standard mode of operation, we check into the hotel and Beth consults her lonely planet guide to confirm the key things to do and we set off walking. This time we also pop into the tourist bureau for some tips (none really forthcoming strangely). We decide that tomorrow would be our day to visit tourist attractions and the rest of today would be dedicated to wandering the streets. First stop was the market square in the middle of the old town, which is dominated by the cathedral. There is a market happening and the square is a hive of activity. We haven't eaten so decide to find something in the market. A bratwurst sausage in bread is the unanimous choice so we queue up at the stand labelled "Wurst" and start trying to work out what we are ordering. It all gets too hard trying to read the menu, so I just point to the biggest, fattest sausage and raise two fingers. The sausages are forthcoming and the man asks for vier euro vierzig (€4.40), to which I think there must be some mistake. Then I realise that we are back in Germany, where you can actually afford to eat. The sausages were delicious, but seemed all the more so because of the price.

Freiburg is on the western edge of the Black Forest, so of course I think that it is important that we complement our sausage feast with a local specialty for dessert (black forest cake of course). For once rain came to my aid and helped to confirm my view that an indoor activity was called for. I need to remember that each Euro costs me about $1.30, so one needs to be careful about getting excited by low prices, but for about half the price of the infamous Saanen tart I got a piece of cake 4 times the size and it was beautiful. I am enjoying being back in Germany.

Having fed ourselves a decidedly unhealthy meal of course we need to walk a lot, and that is exactly what we do. I don't think three was an inch of street in the old town that we did not cover. All of the streets are cobbled and have funny little gutters like ditches beside the footpath which are constantly flowing with water, and it seems to be a traditional pastime for children of the town to float little boats down these gutters. It was quite cute watching them.

On our tourist day we managed to climb the hill out of town and the tower on top of it for the views, climb the bell tower in the magnificent cathedral, visit the old cemetery and eat more cake, which made for quite a busy day. Climbing for views is always good, but I have mentioned before my particularr delight in climbing bell towers, and Freiburg's certainly did not disappoint, with wonderful views of the whole town and it's residents moving about. We were in the bell chamber on the half hour, where the Freiburg bell tolls just once, but this time we were not caught unawares and braced ourselves. One poor child near us though was surprised, and her terrified screams afterwards easily out decibelled the bells. I know how she felt. The cemetery was quite interesting. There have been no interments there for over 100 years, and it has become basically a bit of overgrown parkland in the city with old tombstones scattered about. It was quite atmospheric.

We enjoyed Freiburg, not the least for the lack of tourist hordes. Our next destination of Baden Baden (so nice they had to name it twice quipped Bill Clinton) will not suffer from that same lack of tourists. This weekend is a long weekend in Bavaria, and it also happens to contain my birthday, so our daughter Candice is joining us for a couple of days. We have become quite expert at driving the German rail system, so the short trip from Freiburg to Baden Baden (which is also in the Black Forest) is child's play, but to add spice to our lives, our hotel is five kilometres from the railway station and we need to figure out the local bus system. Quite simple in the end, but that is a problem for us. We are used to complex solutions to simple problems (I haven't forgotten you Myki), so it took us some time to get our heads around it. After finally mastering the system and then checking in at the hotel, we went back to the station to meet Candice who was arriving from Munich and dazzled her with our mastery of public transport.

Baden Baden is indeed a very beautiful place. It is an old Roman Spa town, and is sort of like Daylesford on steroids. The same principle, only older and bigger. Needless to say we wore out the cobblestones with our wandering again. Candice is clearly her mother's daughter, because she decided for a treat that we could go for a long walk up the hill outside of town where there is an old ruined castle with commanding views of the city. Although Candice has sadly inherited my legendary sense of direction, we did eventually find the castle and the views, and it was a lot of fun.

For my Birthday Candice presented me with some bits and pieces she had acquired in her travels in the last few months, including a Tintin comic from Belgium, a spice grinder from Istanbul and some paprika from Hungary. I will enjoy them all. Candice is planning to run the Munich half marathon in October and as part of her preparation she thought that she would do an easy 10k run in Baden Baden. She obviously also decided that this would be an opportunity to check whether at 56 I had become old, and she graciously invited me to come along if I felt able. I accepted on the proviso that she go easy with me (she nearly killed me when we went running in Munich). Beth was perhaps a little concerned about letting two directionally challenged individuals out by themselves in unfamiliar territory, and quite rightly so. We did see more of Baden Baden than we reckoned on, but surprisingly we found our way home and the clock ticked over just less than 10km when we returned to the room. Candice was certainly true to her word snd took it easy. I am not sure whether I passed the oldness test or not though.

Such exertions on ones birthday warrants a treat, and any calories I burnt on the run were very quickly replaced at the Sunday brunch which Candice had organised. I had experienced the German Sunday brunch tradition in Munich, and it was something to behold, but this one was on a whole new scale of magnificence. There was an enormous buffet with all sorts of foods imaginable, including a huge array of sweet things. Sitting in a corner, there was even a little corn flake dispenser, but it didn't seem to be very popular. I thought that I was quite constrained and resisted the temptation to go back for thirds. Beth and Candice perhaps thought differently. I do love Germany, but if I stayed here too long I would explode.

A very memorable and enjoyable birthday and it was fantastic to spend it with Beth and Candice. After fond farewells Candice heads back to Munich and Beth and I really test our capabilities with a trip to Trier which involves four quite tight train transfers, one of which was a little like Harry Potter's platform 9 1/2. We are in Trier for one night only, then we travel to Cologne for 2 nights, Aachen for 1 night, and then to Bruges, which is where I am writing this. Tomorrow we commence our bike ride to Paris, which will take 2 weeks, and I doubt very much that we will have wifi access along the way, so I will post my blog as it is now, or it will have to wait 2 weeks. Trier, Cologne and Aachen were fantastic, and my next post will contain something on them.