Our day got off to a bad start. We couldn't find our train tickets for the ride from Geneva to Venice. We had to do laundry. This is not why we went half-way around the world to go on vacation.
So the funWife and I wheeled a suitcase down the road, over a couple of bridges, and into the laundrimat about 10 minutes from our hotel. We tried to puzzle out the workings of the washers with the help of a handwritten sign. Apparently the Swiss are very concerned about the exact temperature of the wash and rinse water - no hot, warm or cold for them - so they have the exact temperatures thru the various cycles, and we had to convert from Celcius Farenheit in our head, but we couldn't translate the German into English for what the cycles were. Where to put the detergent was not obvious, so we picked a likely looking cavity. Not entirely satisfied we knew what we were doing, we put our money in and made our selections on the LCD touch screens (the town is old and quaint, but washers are ulta-modern). Then we sat and read our books while our clothes got clean and dry followed by the trundle back to the hotel to put away our laundry. They didn't stink afterward so we must have put the detergent in the right spot and gotten just the right temperatures after all. Still, not what you want to do on vacation.
Then it was on to the next problem. A nice stroll to the train station to see what we could do about the missing tickets was followed by the dashing of our hopes. No tickets, no ride, no refund. Just that simple. OK, now that we can kiss that money goodbye, what should we do? We've got to get to Venice on a certain day since we've paid for a hotel there already and we don't want to keep spending money twice. By now it's lunch time, so after a quick bit to eat -- hamburgers at a kabob place -- we decide to go back to vacation while we mull our options.
Since we were getting a late start having frittered half the day away on worry and cleanliness, we decided not to head up into the mountains and instead do some castle sightseeing around lake Thun. So we hopped into the car and headed off to Spiez which I remembered visiting the last time we were in Switzerland. Oddly enough, the schloss was right where we left it, and looked pretty much the same. I also remembered not to get off on the first Spiez exit, which made finding the schloss much easier and faster.
THE ENTRANCE TO SCHLOSS SPIEZ, AND WHAT A GRAND ONE IT IS
YOU NEED A CASTLE FOR THIS DOORWAY TO NOT BE TOO MUCH
HOW MANY MAN YEARS WERE SPENT ON THE DECORATION?
I found the schloss to be both beautiful and fascinating. I could visit castles every day of my life and not get bored. The keep, or large tower, dates to the 10th century, and is quite a rustic pile of stone filled with ladders that stretch seemingly to heaven. Yes, we climbed all the way to the top, and I have to admit that once we were up there it didn't seem nearly as high as when we were climbing up.
The nicer parts of the castle are of a more recent 16th century or even earlier vintage, and for a little castle in the hinterlands simply amazing. The detailed decoration, from the massive wooden door frames to the elaborate ceilings and, heck, I don't even know what you call most of it, is just beautiful. Once again it was clear that it was good to be the baron. To think what was originally designed only for refuge in times of war would become such an object of art. I would have had more interior pictures but my batteries died and my son had lost one of the spares when we were strolling around the grounds.
MY DAUGHTER WITH HER NEW MOVIE STAR SUNGLASSES AND A BEAUTIFUL BACKDROP
The grounds are quite nice and look to get some use from the locals -- at least I think it was locals sitting on the park benches overlooking the lake and reading books, talking, or just relaxing. There is an old church on the grounds that appears to be older than dirt, and another building with an overgrown garden whose purpose I can't even guess at. We weren't even sure we weren't trespassing on somebody else's property when we were walking around the garden. There is also an art gallery in an unattached part of the castle that was showing some still living artist's work who couldn't hold a candle to any of the large number of nameless artisans who beautified the castle over the centuries. If you are ever in Spiez, make sure you drop in.
HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT THIS IS A TYPICAL VIEW IN SWITZERLAND
The setting of the schloss is also quite beautiful, on a piece of land that juts out into lake Thun, surrounded by mountains. In that part of switzerland, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting awesome scenery. The blue lakes, the tall mountains, the vivid green grass - you just feel like you're in a postcard.
Not content with one castle, we motored on down lake Thun to the city of Thun to see the castle there. A note on pronunciation - Thun is pronounced just like tune, and Spiez it pronounced just like, um, kind of like spits, only you have to get the phlegm into it, so more like shpeetz. Please don't ask me why they are pronounced that way, I only know because that's how the recorded voice on the train pronounced them. Now back to your regularly scheduled narrative. We wound up taking a lake front road into Thun, which meant we got a closer view of the lake, but also meant we made a lot more stops along the way. We followed the road signs directing us to the schloss, but it wasn't the schloss we were looking for. It was schloss Hunegg. I would have like to have found schloss Oberhofen, since I have fond memories of it from our earlier trip, but no such luck. So then I hit on the plan of following the signs to go the the City Center, also known as Zentrum.
Everything was going fine except the traffic. Apparently there was only one road that went anywhere because everyone was on it with me. Traffic eased up though when I took the road that was marked as leading to the schloss. At last, almost there. Except it became clear that I was heading back to schloss Hunegg, not schloss Thun. Aaarggh, return to gridlock. And then, on a hill top in the distance, I could see it -- schloss Thun. It rises up over the buildings like a giant white fairy castle. But how to get there?
When we couldn't see the schloss anymore I figured that this time, we really were getting close. And I remembered from the last trip there was no dedicated parking for the schloss - we had parked in an underground garage for a medical building across the street then. So when I saw the sign Frei Parking, I figured we were close enough. Turns out that Frei parking shouldn't be confused with Free Parking, but while not exactly close, we were close enough. We only had to cross a couple of bridges over the river Aare, wind our way through the old city, climb about 400 steps or so, go past the church and we were there. OK, in the castle courtyard we climbed up a long ramp to pay to get in, and then we climbed up another couple of flights of stairs to actually enter the schloss. The main thing I remember about Thun is climbing - stairs, spiral staircases, ramps, even a few ladders. And I have to say, after all that the museum was somewhat disappointing. The great hall and its turrets were pretty neat, but I could have skipped the part where we went down into the castle and not missed it.
After the schloss, we strolled around the old town for a while, including a split level street, the likes of which I've never seen before. For the record, we took the high road down one side, and the low road down the other. Then it was back to the car, and back to Interlaken, with a stop along the way in some small town in an attempt to eat dinner. I say attempt, because they eat dinners later in Europe than America, what with them being urban sophisticates and all, and the restaurant in the hotel we stopped at wasn't open for another hour. Sometimes spur of the moment doesn't work, but that doesn't mean you stop trying it.
