by Diccon Bewes
Back in the late nineteenth century Interlaken very probably was like an English country town, not in terms of landscape but society. The English upper-middle classes sometimes stayed for weeks during the “season” and no doubt had the same urge to see and be seen as back home. The local paper even carried details of who had arrived in town so that people knew to call on them – friends for pleasure, local tradesmen for business. As Murray says of Interlaken, “its almost endless walks and rides, its boating parties on the two lakes, its picnics and balls, would, in the society of friends, afford amusement for a season”. For Miss Jemima’s group, this is where they once again had access to their trunks, sent on from Chamonix a week earlier. Dressing for dinner was now a real option, and most likely expected of guests, so that “the ladies, having got possession of the long-absent trunks, dazzled our eyes with almost forgotten splendour”.
And then there were two church services in English every Sunday, which is exactly where the majority of her Alpine Club went at 11am on their full day in town:
“The sermon was pretty good, although the doctrines were slightly too much in harmony with human nature to arouse the hearers to severe self-scrutiny. It was rather religion presented walking in silver slippers.”
The Höhematte in Interlaken has long been protected as an open space since it was bought from the canton in 1863
They were a tough crowd for an English vicar abroad, expecting a bit more fire and brimstone in Protestant Canton Bern. Nevertheless, she does admit that the “English services have a charm of their own”, and then expressed what so many English travellers then and since have often thought:
“How refreshing it is after wandering for days among foreigners to meet again with fellow countrymen and join them in prayer for dear old England, in the familiar language of home.”
Substitute going to an English church and praying for England with going to an English pub and praying for England to win, and it’s essentially the same experience.
That Sunday for Miss Jemima was most definitely a day of rest, which might sound bizarre given that she was on holiday, but you have to remember two things. First, it didn’t matter where you were or what else you were doing, if you were a Victorian Protestant, you took Sunday very seriously. Secondly, on the seventh day God rested, and he had been only marginally busier than Miss Jemima. The Cook group had had nine days of continual early mornings, long hikes, hot weather, too much excitement and not enough sleep; no wonder Miss Jemima complained of fatigue, even if the moans were good-natured. The longer the trip continues, the more admiration I have for the stamina and dedication of those first tourists. They barely paused for breath most days, and followed a hectic itinerary that would leave modern tourists wilting after a week.
At breakfast my mother makes an announcement. “Today is Sunday.”
After being away for so long, every day is beginning to feel the same, but I know that today is definitely not Sunday; it’s not even a Swiss Sunday; that is, a holiday disguised as a Sunday. That was yesterday.
I shake my head.
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Not in 1863, it’s not.”
My mother has been reading Miss Jemima’s journal as we go, in order to get a feel for how she saw the world and had to travel. It’s easier than dressing up in crinoline and not changing your underwear for a week. And this day in that hectic schedule was a Sunday, which, as we have seen above, was an obligatory day of rest. She opens the diary and shows me the page: “Sunday, 5th July 1863 Interlacken”.
“And?” I ask nervously.
My mother smiles. “And I’m making this a day of rest. We are going to go for a walk, indulge in afternoon tea, poke our heads into the church and generally do not a lot. This is the most exhausting holiday I’ve ever been on. I need a day off.”
So we decided that even though in our terms it was a Tuesday, we would have a day off. We take a stroll through town, just as countless thousands have done before us, starting where Miss Jemima finished, over the river in Unterseen. To the unsuspecting visitor Unterseen may appear to be part of Interlaken, but, in true Swiss style, it is actually a separate community, even if its name means the same as its larger neighbour’s (Seen is German for “lakes”). Unterseen has a distinctly medieval air to it: a cobbled square that used to host cattle markets, the blunt-pencil tower of the bare stone church, the refined townhouses with deep roof overhangs against the snow, the restaurant Bären whose wooden walls were 200 years old when Miss Jemima saw them. It is almost like stepping back in time, especially in the small local tourism museum, which is essentially the community’s treasure chest. The undoubted highlights are a model of the Bödelibahn trains (not very comfortable) and the woman in charge sitting behind her desk and knitting all the time we were there (very comforting).
We also discover why Unterseen has that old-world feel going on: the railway bypassed it completely. The horse-drawn carriages from Neuhaus all used to clatter through here, making it the first stop for many visitors, but the railway line was built on the other side of the river, from lakeside Därligen direct to Interlaken. At the time, it was a huge economic setback for Unterseen, with some in the community joining the carriage drivers and canal planners in opposing the railway (though not the tourists and their money). But becoming a half-overlooked sideshow meant that Unterseen held on to its rustic charm while letting Interlaken develop into an international resort.
Round the corner, on the way back to Interlaken, we’re confronted with a garish yellow banner touting “Table Dance Night Club” in big red letters. Beneath it is what could pass for a restaurant menu board, but is actually information about the Palace Topless Cabaret and No1 Strip Club, open from 5pm to 5am. It’s a startling reminder of the real world, especially as it’s located in the Hotel Central & Continental. Its pastel walls and ornamental balconies show that this was once Unterseen’s grand hotel, one that advertised having “75 beds, 21 balconies, electric lights in all rooms, foreign newspapers”. Now it sits above an “Exotic Night Club”, a Bierkeller and a restaurant “Voted #1 for Asian food”. That’s progress for you.
Unterseen was always far more bucolic than its famous neighbour
Over the Aare again and past the West station, we are back in Interlaken proper. You can tell, because the first two things you see are a souvenir shop and a Best Western hotel (which would be a close runner-up to the Metropole in the Ugliest Hotel awards). Thomas Cook wrote that the shops in Interlaken were “richly furnished with the choicest works of Swiss art and ingenuity”. That is still sometimes the case, although you may have to search to find the art, such as hand-carved wooden animals or bags made from old Swiss army blankets. Of course, there are also plenty of badly painted plates, T-shirts with silly slogans and garish fridge magnets, not forgetting the obligatory cow bells. Almost every souvenir shop in Switzerland has a black metal stand outside laden with decorative bells of all sizes; it’s tempting to give each one a shake.
Cow bells and mouse mats are simply the latest in a long line of souvenirs that have helped sell Switzerland. Having such iconic products that tourists willingly bought and took home was a brilliant early form of guerrilla marketing that did more to advertise the country than the Swiss could ever have afforded. Back in 1863 it was watches, wooden toys and lace, all of which helped build the Swiss reputation for quality and attention to detail. Then came milk chocolate, possibly the biggest weapon in the Swiss souvenir arsenal. Chocolate had been produced in Switzerland for about 60 years when, in 1875, Daniel Peter of Vevey perfected the way of making a sweeter milk version. That became so successful, and so readily identified with Switzerland, that even British chocolate makers like Rowntree of York decorated their wrappers with bucolic Swiss scenes. Free advertising in every sweet shop in Britain.
Hotels advertised their modern comforts, such as “electric lights in all rooms”
Another success was the little red army knives, which became famous in America when returnin
g GIs took them home after the Second World War. This archetypal Swiss souvenir was first created in Schwyz, the town that gave the country its name, by Karl Elsener, a cutlery maker. In 1897 he transformed the humble penknife into a Swiss officer’s knife with screwdrivers, bottle opener, nail file, toothpick – oh, and a blade or two. These Victorinox knives have suitably rugged names like Champ, Ranger, Huntsman and Mountaineer, as if every tourist who buys one is about to go and descale a fish or defuse a bomb. But it’s not only tourists. I’m sure it’s in the constitution that every Swiss man has to own one, as part of the national defence system, along with guns under the beds and nuclear bunkers under the houses. And even little Swiss girls seem to be disturbingly drawn to them (which might explain the pink one I saw in Forclaz). Modern-day Heidis are actually all Pfadis (or scouts), so they need a penknife for whittling sticks and slicing sausages. By the way, Swiss soldiers are issued with a different knife, big and green rather than small and red, with scarily long blades that are probably illegal in Britain, and no corkscrew.
As for cuckoo clocks, there are plenty of those, but let’s get one thing straight: cuckoo clocks are not Swiss. Quite how that myth started is a mystery, although lots of people believe it. Possibly it’s down to Orson Welles’ (in)famous line in the film The Third Man, when he says that 500 years of democracy and peace in Switzerland produced nothing more than the cuckoo clock. That’s wrong on two counts: Switzerland had a very bloody peaceless past until it decided to be neutral, and the cuckoo clock comes from over the German border in the Black Forest. While most Swiss people will happily point that out, most Swiss souvenir shops will sell a cuckoo clock to anyone who wants it.
The funny thing about Swiss souvenirs is that they went from advertising the country to being a bit embarrassing, but are now experiencing a resurgence. When I first started visiting Switzerland on a regular basis 12 years ago, you had to go to tourist spots like Interlaken or Gruyères to stand any chance of finding a mug or mouse mat emblazoned with a Swiss flag. I remember seeing my very first cow-that-yodels-when-you-press-its-stomach in Appenzell, the cheesey town in eastern Switzerland that is almost Disneyesque in its prettiness. Now I can buy them in my local Coop supermarket in Bern. While the number of tourists hasn’t increased over that time period (it’s actually gone down), the Swiss have fallen in love with selling themselves again, or at least the idealised image of themselves. Swiss bashing is out, Swissness is in, whether that’s a renewed interest in Schwingen (traditional Swiss wrestling); or protecting the quality of goods that are Swiss made; or selling souvenirs with Swiss flags all over them. After the traumas of the Swissair collapse and the Nazi gold affair, not to mention the ongoing soap opera of banking secrecy, perhaps the Swiss want and need to feel good about themselves.
I tempt my mother away from the souvenirs with the promise of tea and cake at Café Schuh. This delightful old building on the edge of the Höhematte, with gables that look like a giant nun’s wimple, has been enticing customers with its delectable confections since 1818, so I see no reason to break with that tradition. Sitting on the sunny terrace with a piano being played in the background and the mountains in front of us, it could easily be 1863. And then a tandem paraglider sails over our heads and lands expertly on the Höhematte; that’s definitely not 1863.
Our last stop was Miss Jemima’s first. The Schlosskirche, where she sang her praises in English, is but one example of the small but significant effects of British visitors arriving in large numbers. It was originally part of the Augustinian monastery that was one of the biggest landowners in the Bernese Oberland. In 1528, when the Reformation was officially accepted in Canton Bern, the monastery was effectively nationalised and taken over by the state. The Oberland didn’t react too well to being told to reform, but resistance was futile and the church was converted into a granary, with the rest of the monastery becoming government offices.
It was only in the mid-nineteenth century that the choir of the dilapidated building was used once again for religious services, this time for English tourists. Their arrival en masse, and desire for services in English, led to the parish acquiring the church back from the state and building a new nave. In other resorts the influx of English-speaking Protestants, who didn’t want to abandon their strict observance of the Sabbath, led to the building of English churches, some of which still are in use today, for example in Wengen. In addition, as the Murray Handbook notes, “several wealthy innkeepers have even gone so far as to build English chapels for their guests, as an inducement to English travellers to pass the Sunday with them.” Today, there are still English Sunday services in high summer, in a small plain chapel near the Schlosskirche. It’s something of a local tradition.
Tea on the terrace of the Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau, Interlaken was always elegant
After our day of rest, my mother and I are both up early and ready to face the world of travel again. Perhaps those Victorians, and these Swiss, really do have the right idea. “A 24/7 society is convenient but is it healthy? Discuss.”
Today’s agenda is one of my favourite train journeys in Switzerland, which I have done many times before but am more than happy to repeat: from Interlaken to Wengen, up over Kleine Scheidegg and down to Grindelwald. It has everything a Swiss mountain train journey needs: spectacular views and uncomfortable seats. All we are lacking is some sunshine. Interlaken has the same bad-weather problem that we experienced in Chamonix. When it rains, there aren’t too many options for entertainment, so most people end up going to Bern for some shopping. It’s pointless taking a train up into the clouds, though I’m sure some tourists do exactly that purely to tick that trip off the list. Our list is slightly different from most: not been-there-done-that, but she-went-there-so-we-must-do-it.
This train seems to go on for ever, stretching the whole length of what is a very long platform. However, the Berner Oberland-Bahn (or BOB to its friends) is a tricksy train because it’s actually two linked together, and after a couple of stops they split, one half going to Grindelwald, the other to Lauterbrunnen. That fact is clearly signed and announced, but there’s always one poor tourist who is in the wrong half and has to leap out and dash to the other at the splitting station. It wasn’t designed to confuse tourists, though I’m sure the locals still find that amusing, but to make more efficient (and so more Swiss) use of the topography. After crossing the Bödeli plain, the Y-shaped line enters the Lütschine river valley at a narrow opening between the hills and then follows it up river. At the point where the Weisse and Schwarze Lütschine rivers meet, the train splits and each half climbs up its respective river: Weisse (or white) to Lauterbrunnen and Schwarze (or black) to Grindelwald. Ironically it’s the latter that is popular for white-water rafting, despite the ominous dark grey water, so thick with glacial deposits that it looks like liquid slate. Today we will be taking the route Miss Jemima covered by carriage, following the chalky white arm, although of course in winter both rivers are crystal clear, as there is no meltwater.
Before we can enter the “narrow and savage gorge of the torrent Lütschine”, we pass the oddest collection of buildings ever erected in Switzerland: a pyramid, a ziggurat, a golden dome and what appears to be a giant Chupa Chups lolly. That’s the Jungfrau Park, Interlaken’s answer to the rainy-day problem. It started life as the Mystery Park, although the only mystery is why it ever opened. For a brief moment it was one of the most popular tourist attractions in Switzerland, and then people realised it was actually nothing more than a monument to one man’s ego and weird theories. The man in question was Erich von Däniken, a Swiss author famous for his first book, Chariots of the Gods. Each pavilion in the park covered a different human mystery, such as the Nazca lines or Stonehenge, and showed a film about it. The answer every time was “Aliens did it!”, which is pretty much what von Däniken says in his books. It was a theme park that was all theme and no park. By 2006 it was bankrupt, as dead as the ancient Egyptians. Now it’s been reincarnated (presumably without help from E
T) as the Jungfrau Park, with daytime fun for kids alongside the Aliens-Did-It pavilions.
Leaving behind that perfect example of how tourism doesn’t always equal success, we head on towards the real reason people keep on coming to Interlaken, in rain and shine: the timeless scenery. Whether that was created by God, Mother Nature or Martians, it is truly wonderful.
At Lauterbrunnen it’s all change for the ascent to Wengen. The Junior United Alpine Club, having come this far by carriage, now tackled “the usual toilage of zigzags” on foot. First they had to run the gauntlet of the guides awaiting their arrival:
“We started and set at naught the extortionate demands of a swarm of guides that beset us, who, seeing our independence, came down in their terms. One pursued us who became our guide and porter in one, ingeniously packing all our belongings into a sort of wooden chair, which was fastened to his shoulders.”
We have no one hassling us to carry our bags as, in the shadow of the huge cliffs, we swap our BOB for a WAB (or Wengernalpbahn), the yellow and green mountain train that chugs up the steep side of the valley. The higher we climb, the smaller the village of Lauterbrunnen looks, and even the Staubbach Falls become lost in the vastness of the trench-like valley. Every corner brings a better view, but to help you take the perfect photo, at one point beside the track there’s a little sign with a pictogram of a camera on it; such attention to detail.
We pass on through the cliff-top resort of Wengen to Wengernalp, which has possibly one of the best views in Switzerland: “in almost military line the pointed Eiger, the cowled Mönch, the glistening Jungfrau”, as Miss Jemima described the trio of grandiose mountains that are the symbol of the Oberland. I always enjoy the fact that the Eiger (ogre in English) is separated from the Jungfrau (virgin) by the Mönch (monk). Henry Wordsworth Longfellow called them “those sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons are avalanches”, and that indeed was what Wengernalp used to be famous for, as an avalanche viewing platform: