Alpine 25 Day 8 – 9/5/25: Interlaken and Wood Carving

After breakfast we had a lecture on life in Switzerland today.
The lecture focused particularly on government and the prominent role citizens play in proposing and enacting legislation. The lecturer also covered immigration, naturalization, and citizenship as well as mandatory military service for men, taxes, and government benefits.

After the lecture we headed out on an orientation walk to the city, checking out various stores, restaurants, and ATMs.

Unique home for a little free bookstore.
Floral clock at the casino
Aare river
Go stand in front of that interesting house
Old city hall. Note the Ibex – symbol of the city
Cool wall painting
Interesting (and expensive) cars at every turn
We’ll learn more about wood carving this afternoon.

Then we were released into the wild for lunch.
We checked out the recommendations from GCT and chose one that offered Asian food. It was located at the east railway station less than a mile away so we set out on an adventure.
We eventually found the place – it’s the cafeteria for a youth hostel. OK.
We gave them our order at the bar and were given a ticket to present to the line cooks. Then we watched the cooks prepare our orders using large woks as their primary tools. I want one!
The food was really good and the beer was an excellent lager.
In sum it was a really nice option.

Along the way (and the way back) we noted some interesting sights:

Parasailing is a huge deal here. Sometimes they come close enough to wave to from our hotel balcony.
The field across the street is the designated landing area.
Landing field – people packing up their chutes
Starting line for tomorrow’s marathon
Welcome to the Jungfrau Marathon
There’s even a Japanese Garden
The field across from the hotel is a designated landing area.

Back at the hotel there was time for a bit of blogging before meeting the gang for our trip to the woodcarving museum.

This is a small museum associated with a school and artists’ workshop.

Interesting carving out front
Basilisk
Mermaid
Your guess is as good as mine.
Student project on carving a face – adding emotion
Student project on carving a face – adding emotion.
Matchsticks with faces?
Stunning carving
Carved Gifts

Inside we were taken up to the workshop area where the museum director talked about the history of the museum and the development of the tradition of woodcarving in the area over the past few centuries.
While she was talking a master carver was working away on a project (I think it was just to show us someone working – not a real project, but you never know.)

Next we moved to the classroom area where we were each given a rough cut of a cow and a knife (and gloves!).
The instructors talked us thru the steps to finish the carving and helped us when we got stuck.

Tools of the trade

We celebrated our achievement with wine and the opportunity to raid the gift shop.
Then it was time to head for the stable.

Along the way out and back I captured a few examples of typical buildings in this area.

Back at the hotel we began to think about food and eventually headed out to find something that looked promising (I.e. was pointed out in the morning’s walk). We ran into another couple from the tour who had a good sounding recommendation and gave us directions (which weren’t quite accurate). Eventually we found the place and had an excellent meal (Cheryl and Billie split a big burger while I had the mac and cheese).
After dinner we discovered that the Jungfrau was being less shy.