Bern; Friday, 17 August, 2007

I had decided to leave my choice of what to do up to fate. If it were clear and sunny when I woke up I would head back to Meringen and visit the Alpne tower and the Brienzer Rothorn Bahn as I had wanted to yesterday. If it were grey and overcast then I would have a short wander around Bern and then head off to Zurich. When I looked out of my window at 8am the sun was shining and I was set for a visit to some more mountains.

I checked out of the hotel, but took advantage of their luggage storage facilities and headed back out to the station and for the third day in a row back out to Interlaken (I was beginning to think it may have been wiser to have stayed in Interlaken rather than Bern!) and for the second day in a row onto Meiringen. Today, however, I would be able to go up to the Alpen tower, as it was only mid-morning when I reached the base station. The journey up to the tower, almost at the summit of Planplatten is spectacular. The first cable car, a large 80-person effort, runs every half an hour up to the fist station. From there you change onto a small gondola car that runs up to two further stations, where you change again for a final gondola up to the tower. The only way to reach the tower is by cable car or on foot. The tower itself houses a small restaurant and a bar, but also offers views over the whole region (or what you could see of it through the rolling clouds that kept coming and going over the mountains.)

The journey up took quite a long time, as I just missed the first cable car, and had to wait the best part of 30 minutes. I timed my descent with the intention of not having to wait so long, a relatively easy feat when the descent from the Alpen tower to the main cable car takes 25 minutes, just leave at the same time as the previous departure! When I got back to Meiringen I wandered back to the station, just in time to miss the train (bang goes the idea of integrated Swiss transport), which meant a 25-minute wait. This also meant I missed the connection at Brienz for the Brienzer Rothorn Bahn, which meant another 45 minute wait for that. But it was worth it.

The line climbs up nearly over 2,000 to the summit of Rothorn, on the way up it twists and turns back and forth over the side of the mountain offering stunning views of Brienz and the lake and beyond to Interlaken, Innerkirchen, and across (when the cloud briefly parted) to the Jungfrau and the mountains in that region. The other fascinating part of the journey is how you ascend up. It’s a pretty straightforward cogwheel railway, except that it is still being powered by the same steam engines that have always run the service.

On the way up the cloud kept rolling in and at one point I thought that we would disappear into a fog, but the train kept ascending, and like a plane, rose above the lower cloud and as it reached the top of the mountain the sky cleared for dazzling sunshine to light up the mountain side, the valley and lakes.

I had a wander around at the top, but there is only a souvenir shop/café and a hotel, so I caught the same train back down 35 minutes later, arriving back in Brienz with enough time to make the train back to Interlaken, and enough time there to catch the train back to Bern.

At Thun, the last stop before Bern what appeared to be the entire army was standing on the station, all waiting to catch the train back to Bern for connections on to home. It would appear that the Swiss army only work Monday to Fridays (hint here to neighbouring countries, if you want to mount an invasion, try starting about 7pm on a Friday, you have until 9am Monday morning to get dug in before the army reports back for work.)

At Bern I walked back to the hotel to pick up my bag, and then walked back to the station to catch the train, by now thankfully much emptier, all the soldiers had caught earlier connections, on to Zurich.