This is the view from our hotel room. The reason that we were here can be seen in the far distance. The snow-capped mountain on the left is the 4,107 metre Mönch (monk), which is part of the Bernese Alps. On the right is the 4,158 metre Jungfrau (young woman). In between is Jungfraujoch (joch meaning a col or saddle between two mountains), 3,466 metres up. That was our destination. That was why we were here instead of in Lucerne, as we had originally planned. You will see it more closely in the next image.

Interlaken is a curious place; larger than a town, smaller than a city it's divided into Interlaken Ost (where the big railway station is) and Interlaken West (where we were). There are a lot of people from the middle east here, as well as halal restaurants and taxis with Arabic writing. I wouldn't have thought that it was a particularly appealing place for people from warmer climates. Despite the apparent warmth and sunniness in this shot, within a couple of days it had turned not actually cold (in my view) but certainly chilly. On one day we saw a group of Saudi Arabian tourists huddled in a telephone booth on the railway station trying to keep warm while the native Swiss were in some cases in short sleeves. (It would have been around 14 C that day.)

Speaking of timing, I planned for us to be in Interlaken for two full days. (And most of a third one - this one - but today we arrived from Zurich too late to do Jungfraujoch. It's a full day trip; 3 hours up, 3 hours back, and that's from here. I thank my personal gods that I came to my senses and didn't try to do the trip out of Lucerne.) The reason for this was so that we would have a backup day in case there was bad weather. The trip up to Jungfraujoch costs CHF200 per person; about $A270 at the time. You don't want to spend that sort of money if you're going to be spending it inside a cloud bank. And indeed we were fortunate that way because while the next day (Wednesday, the day we went up) was relatively clear, a change came in that afternoon and thereafter we did not see these mountains again for our remaining time there.