A holiday, no travelogue

We managed to break our Suisse jinx for a holiday there. Finally! And lovely is an understatement. A lot of you write such coherent, detailed and eloquent travelogues after your travels. I beg to be excused.  During July-August, forget cheap, even reasonable is a bit of a stretched wallet or bank transfer. Then there is zeroing in on the places you want to see, we stuck to Berner Oberland region which I kept stubbornly alluding to as Bernese Oberland #faceplam. Oh! did I just say I was the primary researcher and planner!! And another thing, Switzerland is such a blessed destination that one can really never go wrong with whichever places you pick out. Lucky providence, less agony on that one.

We stayed in a lovely apartment overlooking the Eiger and Jungfraujoch.  The landlord says it has been in his family since 1868. The house was absolutely luxurious and the view was amazing. Travelling to Switzerland and planning itinerary involves resolving one important aspect - do you need a Swiss pass and which kind? There are quite a number and type options - offering free or discounted deals on modes of transport there, including travels to the various mountain peaks (or horns) and on museums, etc. And a number of forums dedicated to answer your queries.
Though for us trawling and posting on those forums and worrying our hosts with crazy questions and drawing up a detailed excel sheet for comparisons did not help. It was the helpful girl in the tourist information center who finally decided for us and we were set.

So my impressions that will stay - loved the place, almost everything about it was so charming and wonderful. Trains run on time to the second. All places are totally clean, abounding in natural beauty, packed with tourists - people watching opportunity at it's best in case you tire of the pristine beauty surrounding you. One tends to have a packed itinerary - because it's expensive, and chances are you may not come back again. We had some constraints on what we could do - with two little kids but they were real sports. Admiring the landscape, playing hide and seek in the gondola rides, and chewing gums, courtesy grandmother. Well, it worked so no complaints. Though chewing gum is forbidden back home now.

Some lazy observations -  the cows wear ridiculously huge bells, some of them; the swimming pool at Grindelwald is less chlorinated. Migros is marginally more low-cost than Coop and cauliflowers are size petit. Though we do not know why the Migros at Lucerne does not sell beer!! Souvenir shops are ridiculously overpriced, more so than normal and there is a separate tourism office for the Japanese. And though more or less the tourism marketing lived up to our expectations, the Alpine Garden was a bit oversold. Red is a popular colour. The places have some quaint names and it's fun to repeat them - Kleine Scheidegg, Lauterbrunnen, Wilderswil.... Going up the  Jungfraujoch was a nice experience in the cog-wheel trains. I have always been awed by mountains. Though I may perhaps remember the train ride when a passenger offered bubble gums to the kids - I would too if someone stared persistently when I was chewing gum. And then the whole trip up was spent in alternately teaching and pacifying Big G on how to blow a bubble and it's ok if you can't get the hang of it!

We also saw Interlaken and Lucerne - cities, crowded,  traipsing around them made us more eager to get back to quaint and beautiful Grindelwald. We had a well-equipped kitchen and we went well stocked so home food was not an issue.  Haldirams and MTR ready-to-eats were life savers on very tiring days! Some things we did not do - go to the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne, do para gliding, canoeing. Not all activities are  suitable for a group ranging from 3 to 63 years of age.

And please don't judge me if I tell you my most awesome memory (besides the stunning vistas,  fresh air, mountain views, etc)  will be that I swam sans floats in the deep end of the Grindelwald swimming pool. That and coming back with the perfect idea to model my kitchen back home based on the house we stayed in. Well, to each his own!