Switzerland -- one of our most magical places: Giessbach

Evening on Lake Brienz (June 04, yes, it's been a while)
same evening, but later...

I'm half listening to a lovely radio programme about the Brienzer See and the beautifully restored Hotel Giessbach, which was a ruin when I was a child staying at Iseltwald, with my parents or with my mom's parents. We occasionally walked up there, enjoying a picknick on the terrace of the derelict house. It was a spooky place back then, and doors were padlocked, or I'm sure we'd have gone inside to explore.

I'm not always happy with Franz Weber and his campaigning style but he did a really great job when he called on the support of the Swiss population to help save that fabulous old hotel.

If you don't know it, here's their website:
http://www.giessbach.ch/en/the_grandhotel/about.php

The mountains above the hotel, even above Axalp, on a rosy June evening back in 2004.

Perhaps next summer, if you visit, you'll take the train to Thun, then change to the historic steamer up the lake to Interlaken, change again to the train, and to the even older steamer up to Giessbach. At the Giessbach landing, one of Switzerland's oldest cable-cars/cog-wheel trains will take you up to the hotel. It's a lovely one-day outing, with beautiful meals to be enjoyed on the terrace or in the veranda, with a view of the spectacular waterfalls or across the lake -- it's still one of the most beautiful places on earth, I think, and the food is pretty good.

This is a view of the waterfalls at Giessbach, June 04.

One of my favourite aspects about Giessbach is the steep walk up to the place where you can pass behind the thundering waterfall -- magical! The dark horizontal bar across the lowest part of the falls is a footbridge -- when this much water comes down, people tend to enjoy a refreshing walk through the spray -- delicious!