Alpine Arrival

2nd Sep 18

A fairly uneventful drive down to Gatwick included stopping at a Greggs for food and drink en route, before arriving at the Ibis Hotel where we hoped for a few hours sleep prior to getting up at stupid o’clock for the flight to Basel.

3rd Sep 18

Early start to catch the shuttle bus outside the hotel at 5.40AM and were a little disconcerted to watch a bus go shooting past without stopping. Was the trip going horribly wrong before it had really started? Fortunately, another bus did stop a little while later and we arrived in Gatwick’s North Terminal in plenty of time.

Half an hour delay before the flight took off, but by 8.40 we were airborne (good old Easyjet). We arrived in Basel before 11 local time, collected our luggage, cleared the formalities and exited to find our bus to Basel train station. Unfortunately, no one had told us that Basel airport is actually in France, and we had wandered out through French customs to wait for a bus that never appeared. A short while later we realised our mistake and made our way back through Swiss customs and onto Swiss territory to catch the number 50 into Basel city, and boarded our double decker train towards the Bernese Oberland.

Smooth journey south on the upper deck towards the mountainous region which gradually began to look more and more like the Switzerland we imagined we would find.

On arrival in Interlaken we walked 10 minutes, mostly with our heads raised high to view the surrounding mountains, to find our Swiss chalet style hotel without any problems.

After unpacking we spent a couple of hours strolling around getting our bearings, enjoying a few snacks, and watching the paragliders make the most of the thermals. Interesting to note the presence of those well known Swiss establishments Subway, McDonalds, and Hooters (we managed to avoid all three during our stay).

A few supermarket snacks accompanied by a bottle of wine in our room finished off our first evening in this beautiful place.

Tomorrow the exploring begins in earnest.

Unterseen, Switzerland