Interlaken

So in between my time in Florence, I took a weekend trip to Interlaken with Bus2Alps. Basically, it’s a company that organizes awesome trips for study abroad students. They go all over, from Morocco to the French Riviera. I chose this trip to Interlaken because I was craving some nature! And boy, did I get it! We left Florence around 11:00 pm Thursday night. I talked to the girl siting next to me on the bus for a while and then passed out. When I woke up five hours later, I was surrounded by the most beautiful mountains!! It was amazing. About an hour later, we arrived in Interlaken, but not before our bus scaled the side of a mountain along a dirt road. We got to our cabin-like hostel around 6:00 am Friday morning, checked in and got some breakfast. From that point on, I wasted no time. My first activity was whitewater rafting. The sun was shining and the air was warm, but the water certainly was not. When your raft guide tells you the water you’ll be rafting on is from the melting glacier in the distance, you definitely get a little freaked out. But no worries of course, because you have your full body wet suit! So I’ve been rafting before in northern Massachusetts, and that was awesome, but nothing compared to this. We went through legit rapids! They were crazy; I still don’t know how no one in our boat fell out. But the rapids and icy water in combination with the incredible scenery was just amazing. The mountains were so beautiful, and no picture can do them justice. I even braved it out and went for a dip in the river and the lake we ended our rafting trip in. It was lots of fun! 

After rafting, I got a bagel at a café across the street from our hostel. The owner is from NY, and she imports her bagels from the US. They were so amazing with her homemade veggie cream cheese. I never realized how much I missed bagels! About two hours later, I headed out for my next activity...paragliding. OMD, it was insane!! We piled into a van and ascended up the side of a mountain on a skinny dirt path. We unloaded on the side of a cliff and got strapped into our gear. In case you haven’t yet googled a picture of paragliding, I’ll give you a visual! You are attached to the front of your instructor who’s attached to a big parachute. Each of you starts the journey by standing one in front of the other on the side of a cliff. You wait for a gust of wind, and when your instructor says go, you start running. Eventually, the parachute catches the wind, and as you run, you get lifted into the air over the cliff. It’s seriously one of the most incredible things I have ever done. My instructor directed our parachute at the beginning, but once we were high enough he said, “Now we just go with the wind”. And we sure did. With each gust of wind, we turned and flopped in the air, going higher and higher. Once we were in the air, I was scared for about ten seconds when I looked around and realized what I was actually doing. But the fear quickly subsided and I enjoyed the ride. The view was just so incredible, and the feeling was such a rush! My instructor got some wicked photos of us in the air, and at one point, we did lots of turns and spins. It felt like I was on a roller coaster but better. After about fifteen minutes in the air, we started to descend. Here’s the tricky part...the landing. He gave me some instructions as we got closer to the field. Luckily, the landing was really smooth, and right as we reached the ground I started moving my feet as if I were walking, and they eventually came in contact with the ground. When we landed, I needed a few minutes to process what I had just done. Overall, it was so incredible, and I’m so glad I did it! 

After paragliding, I was planning on hiking to the top of a mountain to get a view of the whole city. Unfortunately, it started raining, and I was a bit nervous about doing the hike alone. Instead, I opted for the funicular ride up the mountain. I felt a bit guilty and was bummed I missed out on the hike, but the view at the top was totally worth it. When I got back to my hostel after that, I showered and was planning on checking out the nightlife of Interlaken, but I didn’t make it. Ten minutes after my shower I was passed out in my bed, exhausted from the full day! 

I woke up the next morning ready to do some more extreme outdoor activities. Originally, I was going to do a hike with part of our group, but two of my friends I met on the trip convinced me otherwise. They had signed up for something called canyoning. What is canyoning? I didn’t know until I was doing it. We signed up for an eight hour day without really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. Of the twenty people, there were four girls, and the rest were tall and muscular guys. I was the shortest and smallest one there...We got all of our gear together (full body wet suit, water shoes, water jackets, lifejackets, and helmets), and then drove for about an hour to another town. The last fifteen minutes of this ride were uphill on yet another dirt path. This time, it really was a path, and a super skinny one. I thought we were going to fall off the mountain. Anyway, we somehow made it to our destination. We unloaded and put all of gear on, adding to that a harness and carabiner. We then hiked for about fifteen minutes through mud and over rickety bridges to the start of the canyon. So what’s canyoning you ask? Well, the first thing I learned was that it actually takes places in a canyon. You know, a deep trench between mountains with lots of rocks and rushing water. We were split up into two groups of ten; I was in the second one. We climbed down to the river of rushing, ice cold water, and began our adventure. We put on our last piece of equipment, lifejackets, and plunged into the water. Our first taste of canyoning was down a small “slide”. When I say slide, I mean we laid our bodies on smooth rocks over which water was rushing, and literally slid down into pools of water. This slide was the smallest of the day, but it was by no means gentle. I went full force under water and was completely caught off guard. I think I did some spins underwater at one point. I was so disoriented and was scared I wasn’t going to come back up to the surface, but that’s what lifejackets are for! The remaining few hours were a combination of huge slides such as this one, free fall jumps, rappelling down waterfalls and cliffs, and climbing over rocks. It was the most insane thing I have ever done. I felt better when our guides started jumping from HUGE heights and doing flips, but it was still a bit scary. Once I got into it and knew what to expect, I was loving it. Once you commit to enter the canyon, the only way out is to go through it and end up on the other side. Before some of the jumps, I was definitely pretty nervous, but you just have to do it. And each step of the canyon is something new and different. It’s amazing!! And you really need to be in shape and able to swim. I could go on for pages about everything we did inside the canyon, but that would take hours. In short, canyoning is amazing, and if you ever get the chance to do it, you HAVE to. It’s seriously insane. By the time we got through the entire canyon, I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to eat. I have a video of me in action, so I will try to upload it to the blog. 

When we got back to our hostel, I had one more thing to do for the day: check out some of that oh so famous Suisse chocolate. My friends and I went to a chocolate show, where we learned about how chocolate is made, got lots of free samples, and saw our chef make some cool stuff, including a chocolate high heel. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day! 

Sunday morning we left Interlaken and stopped at Lake Como for a few hours. Honestly, I was not too impressed. Besides the fact that George Clooney lives here, it was not very exciting; I preferred the mountains of Interlaken. Regardless, we had a nice lunch and walked around before heading back to Florence. We got back to Florence around 8:00 pm Sunday night. I said goodbye to the really awesome people I met (including a guy from UConn who was in Florence for the summer, small world!) and headed to my hostel. I would have to say this was probably one of my top weekends in Europe. I would not be sad if someone said I had to spend the rest of my life in Interlaken!