Lake Thun

Thursday morning could not be another 1pm start to the day so we pushed ourselves out of bed even though it turns out that 30k steps is not a one day recovery. But we hobbled on.

The plan was to travel to Lake Thun which meant taking a gondola down to Stechelberg, the bus to Lauterbrunnen, the train to Interlaken, and another bus along the Lake to Thun Castle.

It was a long journey, but the bus along the lake was absolutely lovely. When we got off we ate some potato chips and iced teas— Red Pepper Sweet Chili chips for me and Mustard chips for Rebecca. Love me a potato chip 😋

Climbed up the steps to Thun Castle and knew that coming down was going to hurt but we are dedicated!

While in the castle gift shop to buy tickets, I put on a knight helmet for kids but Rebecca had stepped out of the room so I just stood there with the hat on waiting for her to come back and contemplating what to do next. Finally I found her and walked toward her with the hat on and just as Rebecca saw me the lady behind the desk let me know that the hats were for kids and not for play. Grown child. We laughed hysterically.

Ironically, Rebecca was in the other room gathering the children’s activity books for us to complete in the castle. In one, we had to find items and put numbers together to crack a code. In the other, we found little colorful worms around the museum with letters in them to form a word.

One of the best parts of the museum was a “justice” scale where we had to balance the crime and punishment from the medieval time period.

We couldn’t find all the worms and really spent way too much time searching for them. The best part of this is that I have no idea anything about the Thun Castle. We think it was built in the 12th century and the four turrets were definitely prisons.

We spent maybe an hour in the castle, had way too much fun, and walked around the very cute town for a bit before heading back toward Interlaken to visit the St Beatus Caves.

Pictures really don’t do justice to the climbing that we had to do to reach these caves. Once again, knowing that walking downhill was much worse than walking up at this stage of body recovery. Up we hiked to go inside some caves.

Turns out, I’m not a huge fan of caves. The whole thing was supposed to be 30 minute walk in and then turn around and walk 30 minutes out. Something about walking in and knowing I was going deeper into the caves in addition to the low ceilings and I decided it was time to turn around.

I am much better suited to have an aperol spritz with a view. Rebecca joined me after her walk and let me know there was not much more to see. Turns out a 5 minute walk in the cave kinda gives you the idea of what they look like.

The best part of the day is still ahead…ever since my food poisoning I have been craving Chinese food! We finally are about to have the meal of my dreams in Interlaken, but first, we must descend this massive mountain/hill situation.

Now I don’t think I can do this story justice, but we both were trying to figure out the best way to walk down this hill with the least amount of pain. Rebecca was sort of leaning back in a half limbo while she walked and kick/swinging her leg out while I decided to squat down low like an old man and scurry down and really just seeing the two of us do this absolutely ridiculously comedic walk down the mountain had me laughing so hard that I actually threw up. Telling the story now in writing has me in hysterical tears.

We made it, survived, and journeyed to one of the best most authentic Chinese meals.

All my cravings satisfied, each piece of that meal yummier than the piece before it. I actually took the leftovers back with us and ate them for breakfast.

The journey back to Gimmelwald was a bit long, but we made it in by 9pm. We howled at the full moon and went to bed early to get ready for a travel day.