5th Sep 18
Having been on trains, planes, and automobiles it was of course time to get on a boat. A cruise of Lake Bienz was the plan, and although we didn’t do it in quite the order we first intended we did it and it was very worthwhile.
Set off to catch the number 21 bus down to Intelaken Ost station but it sped past us as we tried to find the correct stop, so we resigned ourselves to having to walk, very quickly, to stand a chance of catching the boat. We hurried down the road and as we rounded the next corner saw that the bus was held up at the rail crossing to give us a reprieve. We passed the bus and calmly climbed on at the next top to reach the station in plenty of time. Bought tickets and boarded our paddle steamer.
Went the full length of the beautiful turquoise waters of the lake to Brienz, where they like to use chainsaws to carve wood. We saw a few examples on the streets, but as we only had about an hour there and it was lunchtime we spent most of the time sharing a pizza.
Griessbach was the next stop, and our original main destination, which only took about ten minutes to reach from Brienz. Once disembarked, 98% of the people headed for probably the oldest funicular in Europe (established in 1879) to be carried up to the hotel and the site of the main waterfalls. We, however had read that a path would take us there in 20 minutes. About an hour later we reached the main falls - mainly because we kept stopping to view and take photographs of each sight of the falls encountered on our journey. Excellent falls in our experience but the best was yet to come.
We made our way a little higher to a bridge crossing over the falls giving us further view points to enjoy, before making our way a little bit higher still to enable us to get round the back of one of the main drops. Incredibly there was no one else there when we arrived, and this remained the case for a good five minutes whilst we practiced our selfies and photos through the cascade towards the hotel, Lake Bienz, and the mountains across the valley.
It was a shame we hadn’t got here earlier as we would have liked to explore the falls and trails further, but time was getting on. So we made our way back down to the hotel, passing a bunch (or is it a gaggle) of Hari Krishna on the way, and persuaded the driver to let us on the funicular for 5CHF each so we could return to lake level to catch our boat home.
Evening meal was a burger and fries in a Swiss pub in Interlaken which served beer from all over Europe.