Some tricky wi-fi, a panorama, a lion, and a waterfall

Lucerne to Lauterbrunnen
Wed Jun 10

Wednesday morning, I woke up around 7, had some breakfast and headed out on a quest for wi-fi access since we hadn't had any in 5 days. Our hotel was supposed to have it, even offering a network password, but they must have had a firewall set up. I walked around about a 4 block square near the hotel in search of a coffee shop w/ internet...turns out not too many people outside of the touristy stores spoke English. Having no luck there, I wandered across the canal to the old town area. I stumbled across an "Internet Shop", which would have been perfect but they didn't open until 10am. I kept going, circling back across the river towards the hotel. Then on a whim I plopped down on some steps right outside some other hotel and viola, wi-fi! Cost me about 5sF for a half hour, but I sat out there and got some saved up blogs posted! Got a lot of strange looks from passersby...

Got back to the room about 9:30, and Kev, Joe and I checked out, leaving our bags at the front desk. We walked across the river and down a little further than we were the night before. Our first stop was the Bourbaki's Panorama. An absolutely enormous panorama from 1881 showing how the Swiss Red Cross took in a hundred thousand of General Bourbaki's troops, providing shelter, food and medical assistance after France was defeated by the Germans in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. This panorama was at least twice the size of the Salzburg Panorama we saw before. During restoration, they also included 3-D scenery that fit in with the wall painting as well as a soundtrack. Really pretty neat and life-like, making you feel as if you were in the center of all the commotion.

Next we went over to the lion carved into a huge sandstone cliff. Mark Twain once wrote that it is the saddest sculpture in all of Europe (or maybe he said Switz). The lion has a spear in its side, and it is laying down on some shields. After a few pics, we strolled back to the river, ordered some pizzas and ate on some benches down near the water. Very chill--lots of locals were out doing the same thing for their lunch breaks. Afterwards we grabbed our gear from the hotel and caught the train to Interlaken, a 3 hr ride.

On the way we decided not to stay in Interlaken, but get higher up in the Alps. Lauterbrunnen seemed the obvious selection so we took a short 20min train there. We walked along the "main" drag (this was a really, really small town) searching for a somewhat cheap hotel. Remember, everything in Switzerland is expensive. Our first choice was a nice little hostel which would have only been 35-40sF ea a night. No luck, fully booked. We ended up at the Staubbach, a fairly large older pension near the end of the strip and very close to Staubbach falls. I think we paid nearly $150sF a night + $40 for the addl person for a total of $190sF, with breakfast included. So it wasn't exactly a steal, but it was the next cheapest we had found. After getting situated w/ the extra cot (and some beers from the front office, couldn't resist after the long travel day), we went directly to the falls, which we could see from our balcony. A windy path, a tunnel, and some steps led you directly under the falls. Here we snapped a few photos and enjoyed a refreshingly cold splatter of Alp water off of the cliff face.

Went to dinner next at one of two restaurants we saw along the main road. Was rec by both the hotel and Rick Steves, so we figured it couldn't be too bad. Kev and I ordered different types of Rosti --a traditional Swiss cuisine that hearks back to when its about all farmers ate -- breakfast lunch and dinner. Rosti is sort of like hash browns, but of the 500 or so different varieties of potatos out there, apparently only 3 varieties are suitable for Rosti. Thats pretty picky. Traditionally, Rosti is just the potatos. The Swiss have upgraded to keep up with the times. Mine came topped with bacon, an egg, and swiss cheese. Delicious...and quite hearty. If you ever see it on a menu, order it.

Being about 9:30 by the time we finished dinner, the town was dead and we were pretty worn out from traveling, so turned in for the night.