what's that? i don't know but let's find out...

17/12/14

This morning we woke up at 5.15.... which is too early in my books. Charlotte,  Ana, Schooley and I were planning to head out for a day trip.  Our plans were to head first to Basel, then Bern and finally Spiez. 

We left Stockli at about 6 am to walk down to Adelboden, Oey.  From there we caught the bus at 6.26 to Frutigen and then the train to Basel.   We arrived in Basel at about 9 am. 

First thing we did was find the information centre and get a map. From there we were able to navigate ourselves to the Christmas markets and around the town.  

We wandered around...

The Basilisk, Basel's official animal 

Basel's Cathedral

The City Gates

Melfies

Basel Christmas Markets

Charlotte and I trying on really expensive hats

About half way through us walking though Basel, Schooley and Ana headed off to Bern.  Charlotte and I finished walking around Basel and through the Christmas markets some more.  We found that they were selling Mulled Wine and Hot Chocolate in really cute cups, so we decided to investigate.  We had to pay a 3CHF deposit for the cup plus whatever it was for the drink but then as the hot chocolate man said "you don't have to bring the cup back, you can keep it f you want!!"  So we did!

Then Charlotte got hungry and bought a mega pretzel...

We caught the train to Bern and found the tourist centre, who gave us an even bigger and better map. This one had pretty pictures and interesting points to visit on it!


First we found the Christmas Markets closest to the train station.  I was more impressed with the Bern Christmas Markets than I was with the Basel ones!  Here I bought a half beanie type hat thing, to kep my ears warm... you will see it feature in many photos to follow.

Then we walked down the main strip, or what we assumed was the main strip and found the Bern Parliament building. As per Rachael's request we had a Melfie with it.  (Note: Selfies by popular demand have been renamed Melfies for the extent of this trip.. watch out for the soon to come album on facebook of them all!)

Unfortunately all the tours through Parliament were in German so we didn't go on that, however when you walked around the side of the building to the back, there was a spectacular view of Bern. 

We walked to the second Christmas markets and had a look there.  They were smaller than the first but still just as good!  After we walked through there we headed on to just wander.  We found the Clock Tower (Below left) and Einstein's House when he lived in Bern.   

 

About 5 ish we caught the train to Spiez.  Our plan was to walk down to the castle and the river Thun.   However it was raining when we got there and the train station was at the top of the hill and the castle unsurprisingly at the bottom.  So instead we took photos from the too and walked around a bit before getting back on our train.

Here's where the day got messy.  So far we had managed to get the right train at the right time but this time we failed.  We got on at the right platform on the right train according to the board however obviously it said it was the wrong train somewhere because when the ticket man came to check tickets he said nope. Fortunately all we had to do was buy a ticket from Frutigen to Visp,  the next station to get off at and then get back on the train heading in the right direction to Frutigen.  At least he didn't fine us, it could have been worse!

Visp

So we waited until 7.28 as the man told us, I almost got on the wrong train again however Charlotte saved us, and caught the train back to Frutigen.  However, this train was heading straight to Spiez.  So the ticket man got it wrong as well.  He came and found us on the train though and wrote something in German on the back of our tickets.  Obviously whatever he wrote worked because we got off at Speiz and back on the right train which definitely stopped at Frutigen.  The ticket man on this train read whatever the other ticket man had written and said that was fine. 

We got off at Frutigen and there was a bus waiting to go to Adelboden.  We caught that to Oey, and then hiked up the hill home to Our Chalet.  The hike took us all of 15 mins, the fastest I have ever done it!