Day 88 - Interlaken to Giswill - 60kms

Left our home from home at Interlaken and began cycling along the beautiful Brienzsee. So much for a flat profile as the path soon had some pretty intense climbs as it climbed over, under and around the freeway heading out of town.

Interlaken

With that over the riding through green pastures to Merrigen was a delight with the Eiger's profile within view.

I knew we were in trouble when the route took us out of the valley and begun climbing at one he'll of an angle with a sign reading "
the "Brunig Pass"!

On and on the climb went mainly on off road conditions initially through forest and then through open fields with the Mtn tops seemingly miles away! After 5kms of relentless climbing we made the pass and I vowed to go back and check the bloody route profile !




After lunch we began a beautiful descent that went through 2 valleys both complete with lakes (called seas over here)and stunning Swiss scenery. Even with fully working brakes you would have sore wrists by the end of the descent as heavily loaded panniers can cause the bike to very quickly accelerate unless hard brake is applied.

Kev scored accommodation at the Krone Hotel where a mortgage was required for a nights stay. We went in search if food at the nearby supermarket not wishing to further enhance the hotels profits and learned they'd closed as was after 4pm on a Sat !

I rightfully exploded saying something like what sort of backward country is this - or words to that effect and then with Kev rode another 10kms one way trying to find anything open!

Despite populous towns we found nothing but restaurants and being the stingebuckets we were we weren't going in one of them - well not in Switzerland anyway!

Finally we had dinner (chinese) on a railway station platform - hey it could have been worse - and then had to cycle the 10kms back to our hotel!

How do people afford to live here - surely they are not all retired millionaires!