Germany vs Switzerland 2007 - no contest!

There is a massive storm brewing outside and rain is bucketing down onto the glass roof of the hostel's "winter garden" and almost drowning out the music coming from the bar - seems to be the perfect time to write the happenings of the past week. I have to admit I am getting over the constant travel, the changing faces and places, living out of a suitcase and, above all, sharing a room with smelly, dirty, creepy boys. Nothing aginst boys in general of course, I have just been very unlucky... That said, I have packed an awful lot into only 9 days and am beginning to pay for it, once again, in lack of sleep and the resulting bad mood!

Ok so from where I stand, Switzerland is the land of perfection, Munich is just completely random...

Bern

I was welcomed into this cosy, clean, medievil city with open arms. From the moment I stepped off the train a man pushing a pram with family in tow stopped me to check that I knew where I was going - luckily, because I was heading in the somplete wrong direction. He gave me perfect directions in English and I was off to my hostel in no time. I just have had that bewildered traveller's "first time in Bern" look! How often does that happen, that people will actually stop YOU to volunteer directions when they think you need them? Enough said, i was already in love with Switzerland! The walk to hostel only confirmed that love. I have seen a lot of beautiful medievil cities in my travels through italy, but none as charming and PERFECT as this one. The 15 minute walk showed me a few very wide pedestrian-only streets, a tram service which seemed to run every 2 minutes, a fountain at every intersection, large colourful medievil flags (the city's mascot, the Bear, the Swiss cross, etc) hanging from every second shuttered window, every other window bearing bright red flowers. The buildings themselves were clean, all of similar height, and all boasting covered archways which, I later found out add up to 6km worth of shopping malls. The people walking the streets seemed to actually LIVE there, very few tourists were wandering around. The hostel itself was the cleanest and best organised I had yet been to, and all of my room-mates lovely. Despite travelling alone I managed to find dinner and drinking buddies without any problems, but was happy to spend the days exploring alone.

I was ecstatic to have two whole days to explore this city, quite a niovelty after the rushed Greek islands experience, and was determined to make the most of it. The first day I just walked everywhere I could, scoping the place out, and took hundreds of photos of fountains and beautiful streets. Since it only takes about 15 minutes to cross the city centre, i managed to cover some serious ground. I found the bear-pit, a pretty depressing site as the two bears inside spend their days looking up at the tourists and basically begging for treats. From there a sharp incline leads to the large rose garden which looks over the whole city of Bern from a great height - it is so beautiful the way it is nesteld in the bend of the Aare River. It was a beautifully relaxing day, as my first day travelling solo. I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend it. Especially when I was rolling those hand-made Swiss chocolates around inside my mouth, mmmmmm.

The second day I packed as much in as I could, visiting the Einstein museum, climbing the gothic Minster Cathedral tower (not sure how high it was but I estimate around 300 steps in the tight spiral staircase leading to the top... dizzying!), and went down to the river where you can supposedly jump in and be carried along by the current. Unfortunately the river just happened to be raging and swimming was not recommended - at all. So i didn't get to try that little novelty. I spent my last night at the outdoor cinema over the top of the train station where they were screening English movies with German and French subtitles.

Lauterbrunnen

Early-ish next morning I wandered down to the train station and jumped on to the next train to Interlaken, the beautiful city on the enormous, crystal clear lake supplied by glacial melt. After Interlaken I had a little trouble breathing as the train wound its way through the stunning alps, luscious green alternating with snow-capped peaks. The train track mostly ran parallel with babbling brooks and rushing rivers, all full of glacial melt water, on the other side of which hikers and mountain-bikers were having the time of their lives on the abundant cycle paths. The weather was perfect and everything so beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that awaited when I got off the train!

Just to set the picture, it was already a perfect day and Lauterbrunnen sits at an altitude of around 800m, so it seems even clearer than it is. Stepping out of the station I found before me a single inclining street lined with more of the same medievil flags, running through a luscious green valley, lined on either side by 800m high cliffs topped with more greenery, which sparkled with the recent rain fall and spewed forth from a great height several waterfalls, one of which was audible from where I stood, about 1km from its base. Lauterbrunnen literally means "valley fountain" or valley of the waterfalls, and I had expected to be blown away by it, but the reality cannot be expressed by either words or photos. It was AWESOME. The 4.6km high Jungfrau Joch loomed ahead, at the end of the valley, sparkling such an extreme white it seemed purple. I stood there like an idiot with my pack on and my mouth wide open and just stared for a few minutes. A few tears made their way out of one eye and I had to simultaneously resist the urge to burst out laughing. Like seriously, amazing.

Unfortunately there is so much to do in the Interlaken Oberland I had no hope of ever being satisfied with my stay, and have resigned myself to the fact that I absolutely must return. And probably take dad with me to throw himself off some REAL cliffs on the mountain bike :) After the first afternoon, average weather prevented me from doing too much, but i did manage to have 2 huge nights at the "Bomb Shelter", the cramped underground bar reserved only for Contiki and busabout, visit the Trummelback Falls, a series of underground raging waterfalls, go paragliding from a height of about 1.8km over the Lauterbrunnen valley and go white-water rafting through the raging river. I was devastated not to be able to climb to the top of Jungfrau or the slightly smaller Schilthorn, due to both time and weather constraints, but since I had a few hours between activities I was determined to do SOMETHING... talking to my paragliding pilot scored me a free lift into Grindelwald, which was a much larger valley than Lauterbrunnen and equally beautiful in a different way.

Needless to say Switzerland left both my wallet and my energy supply very drained!! But in 7 days I didn't manage to find a single thing bad about it. Except maybe the abundant gun ownership, that worried me a little, but there was no sign of it anywhere at least!



Munich

Beer drinking capital of the world... this city was founded by monks who found that brewing beer was a good way to beat the hunger of their fasting regime... personally I call that cheating! But the fact that beer drinking and religion went hand in hand to create this city says a lot about its present-day state. It is just so RANDOM.

Enormous beer gardens which are full all day, every day of the week, a diet of pork knuckle and sausages, beer for breakfast... a heart attack waiting to happen. how this population has survived until now I do not know. The architecture is very mixed due to the fact that 60 % of the buildings were flattened in WWII, so it's very difficult to deifne the character of this city.

Our first night consisted of a beer-crawl, where I very proudly drank a whole (almost) Stein of Augustiner beer, bellowing "PROST" and clunking glasses with all my new busabout mates. It just got better (and messier) from there. We all had so much fun and had many stories the next day, but doing the 3 hour walking tour with a hangover was not the best idea. Nor was trying to cram in a 2 hour visit to the Dachau concentration camp.

Dachau deserved much more time than we gave it, I ran out of time to even go into the museum where all the informaiton was. I don't think i got the full effect of the place, but even knowing very little about it, you walk onto those huge grounds and just feel your skin prickle. Very little of the original remains, but they've done a good job reconstructing just enought to give testament to the horrors that occurred there, combined with a few very effective monuments, one of which is set out against the sky and depicts dark, writhing bodies entwined with barbed wire... awful stuff. I just can't believe I was walking as a tourist around the vast, empty space where so many people where mercilessly tortured and killed. The silence was very thick, I imgaine it would have been the same even when the place was full of prisoners. You just can't imagine what they went through. Well I can't anyway, no matter how hard I try.


Verdict:

I had possibly the worst hsotel experience imaginable in Munich (will write at a later date), which tainted my entire stay and meant that Switzerland is the clear winner from the last week and now my officially adopted 2nd home. I need to find myself a swiss man, as I don't like my chances of breaching those borders through any other means and am too scared of all the guns to try and do so anyway...

For now it is getting late and I have to be up at 4am for a flight to Brussles, so I bid ye goodbye, but please stay tuned for the exciting adventures of rat-boy.