Sunday, July 14, 2019: Day 8; Rest and Relaxation

The plan today was to arise for a 6:45 am breakfast before meeting in the lobby to walk over the train station. There we were to board the cog train to Jungfrau, the highest train station in  Europe at 11,333 feet. At that point, we were to have a snack before starting back down, arriving back at the hotel at 3:30 pm. Then at 4:50 pm, we were to meet again in the lobby to walk over to the funicular train (a railway operated by cable with ascending and descending cars counterbalanced) for a trip up to the Harder Kulm restaurant for a private dinner. We would return to the hotel around 8:30 pm, with just enough time to pack before going to bed so we could get up at 6:00 am Monday morning to check out and board the bus.

What Maria and I actually did varied a bit from the scheduled itinerary. We slept in until about 10:00 am "hurried" down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast before they closed at 10:30 am. We then walked through the little town of Interlaken, checking out the shops and visiting the Kuntzhaus Art Museum. This is a small place dedicated mostly to art associated with the history of the melting of the glaciers in the surrounding area (Keinismeehr - Art about glacial meltdown).

The funicular

A Heidi dress for Maria's niece

A couple of hang gliders above the town

After that, we walked to the other end of the village and found a nice sidewalk cafe where we had a Toast Hawaiin (almost a fondue with ham, pineapple and cheese on a piece of toast) and a glass of wine. Throughout the day, we watched hang glides fly off the mountain above Interlaken and soar around the valley before landing in the park in the center of the village. At any one time, you might see a dozen hang gliders soaring above the town,

The sidewalk cafe we visited

Toast Hawaii: with ham, pineapple and cheese

 Walking back to the hotel, we enjoyed the local architecture.

As for the evening schedule, I ran into our travel guide (Paul) in the business center of the hotel around 4:00 pm. He asked if we were going to join them for dinner and I told him we thought we would. A little bit later, Maria and I decided we would rather continue the R&R for the remainder of the day, so I sent Paul an email telling him not to wait on us.

Maria and I played on-line chess and Scrabble (I have a chess winning streak going...2, while she continues to humiliate me on Scrabble).

Tomorrow we will rejoin the group. We check out and head for Bern. We will do about four hours of sightseeing in Bern before heading on to Lucerne.

Update on the Chess competition. I won another game this evening, extending my winning streak to three. We switched to a game of Boggle. We both have a steep learning curve on the on-line version of that game. Just before retiring, Maria wanted one more shot at Chess....a quick game. We started about 11:00 pm and did not finish until after midnight. Conclusion: my winning streak came to an abrupt end. Maria undoubtedly beat me. At the end, I was left only with my King and she had her King plus TWO Queens! I was looking for a merciful end. I warned her SEVERAL times to be careful to avoid creating a stalemate situation. I even described such a situation for her. Well, guess what. The game came to an official conclusion in a draw.