Our first full day in Interlaken was Swiss National Day, which celebrates William Tell shooting an arrow off of his son’s head and the attending discomfiture of the Hapsburgs way back in 1291. Hey, any excuse to throw a party. Seriously, you’re much smarter to mess with Texas than Switzerland.
EVERYBODY IS SWISS ON SWISS NATIONAL DAY, EVEN AMERICANS IN A JAPANESE GARDEN
We didn’t shoot any arrows, but what with an aperitif at the Casino in the morning, a parade down the Hohenweg in the afternoon, and fireworks at night, we truly had a full day. Tables and booths were set up all along the Hohenweg selling brats and beer from noon until long after I went to bed. The weather was cool with a low overcast and frequent periods of rain — which is pretty much how the weather was the whole time we were there — so we didn’t mind too much that the only thing open were the the shops in town and vendors along the Hohenweg.
The casino was thronged (free drinks has that effect). Since the speeches were in German, I have no idea what they were about – political messages from local politicians or historians extolling the virtues of Swissdom. But they soon gave way to the universal language of music. Just as the Swiss are famed engineers for good reason, there is a good reason that “swiss music” draws a blank. It was there, and that’s about all.
THE MILES DAVIS OF SWITZERLAND
WHAT’S MORE FUN THAN HARDERPOTSCHETE? NOTHING
The parade in the afternoon was a lot of fun, something that you would see anywhere in small town USA, if the town were in the middle of the Alps and swiss. The best part: no politicians. They had marching bands, and people dressed up in traditional clothing, although in this part of the world the clothing dates back centuries, not decades. They had Scouts, which is different outside of the US in that it is coed (please don’t tell me about Venture crews, I know all about them). But they also had mounted men-at-arms (women too) to advertise the outdoor production of William Tell, the play. They had two sets of alpine horns – first was the guy above who really sounded good and got the biggest hand of the day, and then a group of five or six with horns so big they had little stands built in but when each person just blew a single note I thought to myself all that just to hear a single chord? First they had a herd of cows with enormous cowbells, and then later they had a herd of people with enormous cowbells. The people did sound more in unison, but you have to like seriously loud noise to like either group, so let’s just say I’m not a fan of bone rattling bells. When the fire truck came through, they were squirting the crowd, and seemed to enjoy it when people in the upper stories of the buildings along the route responded by throwing buckets of water back. I’m just glad I wasn’t underneath the worst offenders. The most fun for the kids were the harderpostschete, who despite their scary appearance brought forth laughter when terrorizing them.
That evening we enjoyed an ice cream cone — which we did most days in Europe as the ice cream was delicious and cheap — while waiting for the fireworks. Everybody else in town seemingly brought their own supply of fireworks, because everybody around the central park was setting off enormous quantities of their own before the professionals did. Even a group of older American tourists who arrived that day by bus and were leaving the next day had some. There was such a throng around the park the children who were parading around the park with their lanterns required a drummer and a couple of stout men in the fore to clear a path. I have to say the fireworks display was quite good, up to Fourth of July standards, and the nice thing was we only had to walk a block back to our hotel. It made for an exciting finish to a relaxing day.
