Monday, July 23, 2012

Steinbock restaurant@Lauterbrunnen, Isenfluh and Interlaken..Day 2 Continuation

(Continuation from an earlier post related to Day 2 - Switzerland trip)

After we got back from the falls to Lauterbrunnen, we were very hungry and hit the warm and inviting Steinbock Restaurant right across the station. It took us some time to find someone to seat us - since it was quite warm outside, we ordered a veggie pizza to keep us light for the rest of the day. It was quite tasty though on first look, to be honest, it did not look as inviting.

View outside!
Food click!

Veggie Galore...

After this, we decided to try the cable car ride from an adjoining scenic village Isenfluh. The bus driver was quite grumpy - maybe the only grumpy soul of Switzerland. But the person manning the cable car ride was a cheerful soul - he volunteered to check if the connecting bus back to Lauterbrunnen was still on and confirmed the same for us.


These odd-looking scooters called "Monster-Trotti" are available for rent (at Sulwald) to ride on and get back to Isenfluh. They use the cable car to transport the scooters back to Sulwald - a neat little arrangement they got there! Definitely one of the things I want to try next time..not sure how much my fear of heights will co-operate - we will see!


This is the gorgeous view from up in the mountains of Sulwald. They have a nice little coffee-shop where you can hang-out and relax. I took a stroll down the hiking pathway near the coffee-shop and got these scenic clicks. It was just gorgeous. Reminded me of the New Year cards we used to exchange as kids and they used to have these scenic clicks or some flowers! :) Wonder if anyone lives in the house in this pic - how lucky to live among nature like this!


Coffee shop @ Sulwald, up in the mountains

Cable car on it's way down to Isenfluh - the click was taken from Sulwald!
On our ride back we had a funny experience. Me and my friend got into the cable car alongwith two other people and we closed the door. We are waiting for the person in Isenfluh to trigger the ride back. Nothing happens. A couple come rushing and we open the door for them. They also step in and we close the door. All of waiting uncomfortably in the car - nothing happens. As we start reading the instructions to click the green button, the German couple start laughing. To let us in into their funny moment, they tell us that the instruction in German tells to click the red button. So we are now in a fix and we click one of the two - someone answers from the other end and we are on our way down finally! :)

Lovely mountain wild flowers near the bus stop at Isenfluh

Wilderswil Station on our ride back to Interlaken
Beautiful cuckoo clocks

Some more cuckoo clocks


A good number of Indian restaurants are in Interlaken - quite a surprise for me! There is one "Spice Club of India" about which we heard good reviews from a number of Indian tourists. These are the other ones we found while walking around the downtown in the evening! :) We ended up in a Thai restaurant in an alley-way - don't ask me about it! The hostess behavior was pretty odd - no matter how much I want to blame that on her lack of English-speaking skills, I am not able to! This was the second and last distasteful experience during the entire trip! I wish I remembered that restaurant name and could slam her in Tripadvisor reviews! Anyways, let's keep going with the good memories only.

 

After the Thai dinner, we treated ourselves to some nice ice-cream and headed to the room. Again, back to the chalkboard on our plans for the next day! :) Oh, I also realized that my bank account was blocked for fraud-alert due to access from foreign country (inspite of my informing them in advance!) - so you can imagine how disgusted I was - anyway, managed through the next two days before it was resolved after a number of frantic international calls to my bank! So this was some drama .. but I am proud that I refused let it spoil my vacation mood! Took some conscious effort ... :)

Day 1 - Geneva to Resort in Ovronnaz, Valais
Day 2 - Trummelbach Falls and Isenfluh, Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken (Day 2 Morning)
Day 3 - Wengen, Klein Scheidegg, Jungfrau and Grindelwald
Day 4 - Basel and Bern
Day 5 - Lucerne, Golden Pass Tour through Zweissimen, Saanen, Gstaad, Montbovon, Montreux
Day 6 - Zermatt and Glacier Express to Andermatt
Day 7 - Back to Geneva and home

Day 2 Afternoon Travel was primarily this:


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