Interlaken!

While we were in Nice, our hostel mates from Windsor told us that we should go to Interlaken. So, we did! It is an adventurer sports paradise with activities from paragliding, rafting, to canyoning and glacier climbing! It is perfectly tucked away inbetween two lakes and mountains all the way around! There is no such thing as a bad view in Interlaken.
Interlaken is in the Jungfrau region which is known for its mountains. It has the largest mountain in Europe which is nicknames 'The top of Europe.' We would have like to go there, but it would have costs about $175 each just to get up! Then we'd have to worry about getting down!

This is the view from our hostel window! We stayed in a 6 person dorm and were lucky to have the room to ourselves the first night. Later we had two brothers from New York and a guy from Toronto stay with us.

We arrived in Interlaken around noon and decided we couldn't be in an adventure town and not spend every minute on some sort of crazy adventure. So we rented bikes and decided to get up close and personal with the Swiss Alps!

Here we are, not too far along in our bike ride. Every few minutes one of us wanted to stop and take a picture of something! Everything was so picturesque!

As we were heading along the trail, we both suddenly stopped, looked at each other, AJ exclaimed 'It smells like strawberry rhubarb pie!' and Erika yelled 'I smell raspberries!' There were wild berries growing all around us! It smelled so delicious! But clouds were rolling in and we had to finish our trip before it was too dark to see.

Most of the trail was along this beautiful river that was full of rapids and small falls. As we were climbing closer and closer to the town, we would catch currents of cold air near some falls! It was incredibly refreshing!

This spot was so beautiful! We found a little hidden path off of the main one that led us right up to the water. You could feel the cool air coming off of the ice cold water! We stayed for a few minutes cooling off and admiring everything!

We encountered lots of animals along the way, each and every one had a cowbell tied around its neck! There were mostly sheep and a few goats and every once in awhile a cow.

This is the town of Lauterbrunnen! Erika was thoroughly impressed that she made it! The best surprise about the town was the waterspout on the side of the mountain! All over, it seems like the mountains are leaking and in some spots, like this one, that it is bursting with water! Every few minutes, we would see another stream or spout coming from the mountain.

We finally made it to Lauterbrunnen!!!! It took us 2 hours to bike up to the town, and only 50 minutes to get back to Interlaken! We didn't really realize the gradual slope up hill the entire way, but it sure did make the ride back easy.

Back to Interlaken for a picnic! In the center of Interlaken, there are two huge fields used as the landing site for the paragliders. Everyday, hundreds of people paraglide and it is so fun to watch them come in one by one. One day we were walking to our picnic spot and we heard someone screaming at the top of their lungs. We looked up to see a paraglider doing some tricks in the air and his rider was going nuts!

While paragliding sure looked like fun, we decided to splurge our money on something a little crazier! Check out our next post to see what it is!!!