Searching For Heidi Part 1

Just back from a weeks holidays which was mainly spent in Darmstadt working on the garden. Last Friday I left with 4 work colleagues for a 3 day trip to Switzerland on a hotel familiarisation and returned late last night. We caught the ICE high speed express service to Interlaken on Friday morning and after a train change in Berne we zoomed off down through the alps along the side of Lake Thun, arriving in Interlaken about 5pm.

We were met at the station by Beate Makowsky the Sales Manager from The Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel and taken to the hotel. It is a Grand Hotel in the true tradition of palaces of its era and boasts a lot of art deco and magnificent ballrooms overhung with fabulous crystal chandeliers. It was the height of Victorian society and fashion to stay at these types of hotel by the aristocracy in turn of the century europe. They have just finished building a state of the art spa onto the rear of the hotel which also has a new wing of 12 suites. We were each given a stunning new suite of about 60 square meters, with Bang & Olufsen TV and stereo, big balconies with recliners and views to the peak of the Jungfrau, and bathroom big enough to accomodate a normal lounge room in marmotte marble and glass. Very modern and wonderfully comfortable with a full lounge sitting area and writing desk. Normally 900 swiss francs per night. For James and friends, free !!!! Gotta love that word.



We were given enough time to enjoy their new spa complex for 1.5 hrs and then we met in the lobby for a tour of the hotel and its facilities.

At the end of the tour we were taken to the cellar for glasses of Laurent Perrier vintage champagne and hors dourves. This was followed by a four course dinner in La Terrasse, an elegant restaurant with exquisite French cuisine and piano entertainment and running 16 gualt millau points. Courses included Salmon tatare with bretzeli,caviar and herb salad followed by a soup of Fennel cuppuccino with saffron blossoms. The main course was a saddle of veal with star anise and chilli jus on risotto and topped with horns of plenty mushrooms. The final round was a tasting of plums dome three ways as a plum crumble, plum mousse and plum sorbet inside a delicate wafer bowl. Dinner was served with a variety of Swiss white and red wines which included Eppesses La Braise d'Enfer 2004 and a Pinot Noir Luzifer 2003. After dinner we were taken to the lobby bar where we were given our choice of after dinner drinks. I had a couple of glasses of a truly lush 1981 Vintage Calvados by Christian Drouin. My, my but the gods were smiling and so was I. As we were so full to the gills we took a walk around the streets of Interlaken, looked in the shops and stopped at a bar for a couple of beers before returning to the hotel for a short but well earned sleep.



We were up again by 7am for breakfast and departed at 08.30am to the rail station where we caught the scenic train over the mountain passes to Bergenstock. The scenery was truly awesome and the lakes were so clear and the water blue from the glacial melt. We were met again by the hotel pickup service and driven the 15 km's to the Burgenstock Park Hotel



The hotel is perched on the edge of 1000m high enscarpment overlooking the lake to Luzern in the east. We had a full tour of the property before taking lunch in their traditional swiss restaurant the Taverna. Lunch for me was a traditional Bouillon mit Fladle which is a clear consomme with fine shreds of pancake followed by a Rosti with bar-b-que pork fillet and herb butter. After lunch we walked the trail out east on the Felsenweg path for a scenic 2km forty-minute clifftop walk to Europe’s fastest outdoor elevator which makes the 100-metre trip up to the mountain station of the Bürgenstock (1,114 m above sea level) in just 55 seconds. It is a mindblowing ascent in a glass fronted elevator which rides in a steel cross member tower. The lift rises at 3.42 meters a second for the last 123 meters of the ascent. It was built by the Schindler company and I couldn't help but remark, " Ahh, so this must be Schindlers Lift!"



At the top we walked around the various lookouts, watched an aircraft flying by at head height towing a glider, observed a huge Zepplin cruising around the lake 500 meters below and took in the unfettered view of a miriad of yachts, launches and ferries plying the lake below. We had coffee at the restaurant before returning via the lift and by foot to the hotel where we then took the funicular rail or zahnrad bahn (tooth wheel train) to the lake below to catch the ferry to Luzern.