By Eddie Young
Former Sports Editor
Eddie Young, The Signal’s former sports editor, is studying abroad in the United Kingdom this semester and will chronicle his travels each print edition.
If you can see any mountain range during your lifetime, go to the Swiss Alps. The best views I have ever seen in my life came from here during my visit. From the moment I left, I have been and will always be planning my trip back to Switzerland.
My Switzerland trip started and ended in Zurich, though, not the Alps. As the nation’s capital city, Zurich had a lot to offer for a nice day trip. It is situated at the end of Lake Zurich, which gives great photo opportunities and has a lovely boat tour that lets you see the city and other surrounding towns.
For many people, when they think of Switzerland, they think of banking and money. When you are in Zurich, you see why. Whether it’s UBS, Credit Suisse or some other Swiss bank, you will see one in an extravagant building on every street corner.
One of the city’s biggest landmarks is Bahnhofstrasse, its main street. It is lined with a ton of high end shopping outlets, making it one of the most expensive areas in the world. It was nice to window shop as I walked down the street, but every single store I saw was so far outside of my price range that I did not dare to step inside one.
A Switzerland trip will hurt the bank account. High prices were a common theme. This was the most expensive place I have ever been to, and that stayed true even when I left Zurich for the Alps. There is no such thing as a cheap meal in the country (at least to an American college student), and you have to be willing to splurge a little if you want to do anything. Swiss banking has made this a rich country, and this wealth can be seen in the prices on the menus of every restaurant you visit.
Zurich was clean and felt safe when I was there. However, I found it forgettable. While the lake was nice, I felt that nothing really stood out to me more so than anything in any other city. I enjoyed the FIFA Museum and the boat tour, but I left having no real intentions of ever returning.
However, all of that changed the moment I made it to Interlaken. A small town between two lakes and in the middle of the Alps, Interlaken is a hub for people making trips to the mountains. The town only has a population of about 6,000, but it is constantly filled with foreign tourists that crowd the streets and the mountains. It seemed as though there were multiple hostels or hotels on every single street, and it became obvious that the town thrives on tourism.
Harder Kulm is Interlaken’s mountain, and my first order of business in the Alps was hiking up it. I had arrived at night and was unable to see much in the dark, and it was foggy every morning I was there, so for my first 12 hours or so in Interlaken, I did not get a view of the Alps.
However, when I first broke through the fog while hiking up Harder Kulm, the resulting view was one that made me realize my entire trip was going to be well worth it. I was surrounded by these massive and beautiful mountains, and the seemingly never-ending blue sky set a perfect backdrop for the view. While scaling Harder Kulm, I took many breaks to take in the magnificent sights I was lucky enough to be seeing.
The view from the peak of Harder Kulm (Photo by Eddie Young).
After two hours of crushing wet leaves, losing and re-finding the trail, and even navigating around some cows, I had finally reached the peak of Harder Kulm and earned myself the best view of the day. Looking straight out, I could see snow-capped mountains and even some villages on the side of other mountains that seemed impossible to get to. When I looked down, I had a gorgeous viewof Interlaken and the two bright blue, clean lakes to either side of the town. The two hours of hiking are well worth it, and even if you take the funicular up the mountain instead, the views from here are a must-see in your lifetime.
I had felt that nothing else I could do in Switzerland could beat what Harder Kulm had to offer. It had the greatest views of my life, and there was no way anything could be better. The next day’s trip to Lauterbrunnen would prove me wrong.
Lauterbrunnen is a village in a valley, situated in between two cliffs in the Alps. The valley does not offer much space for a big city, so there is only one main road and a walking path that keeps going once you leave the village. The village itself is very cute and has a couple of hotels and restaurants that are highlighted by the views you get when looking past them.
Lauterbrunnen also has two waterfalls for people to explore. Staubbach Falls are right at the end of the village, and it is free to walk up and get pictures from behind the falls. Then, if you keep walking further down the path, you can get to Trümmelbach Falls, where you can see a waterfall go through a mountain at 10 different viewing points. Words cannot even come close to offering a worthy description for how amazing these two experiences were. Being inside of the mountain and watching the Trümmelbach Falls made me feel like I had been transported to some mythical world.
The walk along the path away from Lauterbrunnen was breathtaking as well. It was a peaceful walk, and had great views of the surrounding mountains from the valley. The day before, I had gotten my stunning views of the Alps from above. That day, I had gotten my stunning views of them from below.
This path also had a ton of farms lining it. Every farm looked very well kept and had cows that seemed to be living their best lives. Some farms were even selling their own Swiss cheese and dairy on the path, but no one was there to sell. They just had the items for sale out in the open and had prices and a card reader there, assuming that everyone that took something was going to do the courteous thing and pay. Imagine that happening in the States.
Zurich was cool, but the views of the Alps that Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen offer made this trip one of the best I have ever been on. It was a nice change of pace from all of the city trips I have done, and constantly being surrounded by gorgeous scenery is calming. All of you should be looking into how you are going to get there in your life. It is well worth it.
