Interlaken, Home of Extream Sports and Amazng Scenery

We spent 3 days in Interlaken and made sure to use our time as best we could. I know we briefly mentioned what we did but here are the pictures that make everything so much more real. Day one we checked in and went paragliding. It was well worth the money (a lot) and it was good for me because I was terrified of the idea but it was so peaceful and beautiful and surprisingly not scary. It'll still take me a while to warm up to the idea of skydiving but I'd say this is a good start!

Day two we got as close to the "World's Highest Train Station" as we could afford. We got one stop away before prices skyrocketed. We hiked our way down the mountain until we reached a village connected with the train, probably about 5 hours. I totally felt like running and singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." with my arms stretched out. Oh wait, I probably did do that! We saw a ton of avalanches too. They sounded like thunder.

Day three we took a train to Grindlewald and planned on a 4 hour hike that was kind of a loop. However, our map was not one that accurately showed elevation gain so after hiking up an insane mountain side for an hour and a half we gave up, collapsed and walked back down never really getting anywhere except halfway up a mountain. Oh well, it was beautiful and it felt so good to be outside enjoying as much of the alps as we could handle. Still, a three hour hike....not too bad.


Suited up, at our take-off location and totally ready to fly!


Action shot. See my instructor behind me trying to get in the picture!


Here's David's action shot. His instructor caught a "thermal" (hot air) and so they were above us.


Here we are, again fascinated by farm animals. Up until this point neither of us realized we had never seen a real life pig before. I vaguely remember seeing baby pigs some where when I was tiny but this is totally different. We just wanted to post it because it makes us laugh. It is just the ugliest thing we have ever seen! And I thought donkeys were ugly!


The mountains and valleys of the alps.


Totally "Sound of Music" worthy. If you look closly, in the upper left corner you can see the highest train station. It is just to the left of the big mountain in the center. That mountain, by the way is Jungfrau (meaning Virgin).


Here is one of our many avalanche shots. This does not do justice.