Brienzersee & Thunersee

After a good night's sleep out of the rain with generous Warmshowers host Rolf in Meiringen we got an early start down the valley of the Aare River. A quiet farm lane led us past beautiful waterfalls and horse pastures towards Brienzersee. We opted to take the north side of the lake to give our tired legs a break from climbing, and rolled easily along the stunning blue lake with sunbeams poking through the clouds. After being joined on the road over Grimsel Pass by hundreds of Vespa scooters the previous day, we finally discovered that World Vespa Days was being hosted in Interlaken, so people had come from far and wide to ride their funny (loud, stinky...) scooters in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland. We enjoyed the touristy streets of Interlaken and then took a break to swim in the chilly waters of Thunersee, before continuing to Spiez to be hosted by another Warmshowers family - Christian, Maria, and their sons Eirik (8 years old) and Sigurd (6). Despite the two young boys only speaking Swiss German, Claire managed to have some fun playing with them after a delicious shared pizza dinner, and they even slept out in the yard with us for the night. We always enjoy making these connections and getting a deeper look into a place than we would if we just rode through without any local context.Read more