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Breathtaking Brienz
Moumita Deb
My heart skipped a beat as I stepped down from the train at the
tiny Brienz station. The sight that awaited us was simply breathtaking
- a spectacular pastel green lake completely surrounded by snow-capped
mountains and gushing waterfalls.
Brienz is a small town located on
the eastern end of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland region in
central Switzerland. It was springtime in May and I was on vacation
with my husband and my two young children, Soham and Srishti. We
had booked ourselves at a 3 Star hotel called Hotel Lindenhof which
was a ten minute walk from the train station and located on an uphill
slope. It was an absolutely cute hotel and we found our family apartment
creatively decorated and with a balcony  opening
out to vistas of misty mountains, Lake Brienz, a train track and
cows grazing in the distance.
We started the evening with a walk
around town and ambled along the main street which had a few souvenir
and woodcarving shops (Brienz is famous as the most accomplished
centre for woodcarving in Switzerland). We spotted the charming
Brienzer Rothorn steam train next to the main train station, which
ascends to the Brienzer Rothorn peak, offering breathtaking views
of the Brienz-Meiringen-Hasliberg region and the Jungfrau mountains.
After checking out the town, we left for dinner at the historic
Grandhotel Giessbach next to the famous Giessbach Waterfalls. The
hotel has a spectacular setting - mountains surrounding it, lake
Brienz below and the thundering waterfall right next to it. It is
a luxurious turn-of-the-century hotel complete with turrets, imposing
stairways, ornate décor with oil paintings and other artifacts.
We had a delicious dinner of ‘Rosti with baked chicken’
at the Park Restaurant and enjoyed the romantic ambience to the
tunes of lilting piano music.
 Brienz
is well connected by train and one can do several day-trips to tourist
spots around that region. The next day we started out early for
Mt. Titlis, took the train to Engelberg and from there took the
revolving cable car ‘ROTAIR’ to the top of the Mount.
On reaching the top, our children went crazy with excitement looking
at snow all around them and spent a good hour sliding down snow
mounds and snowball-fighting while breaking into peals of laughter.
We Indians, who live in hot and dusty cities in India, don’t
get to experience snow at such close quarters and hence their excitement
was understandable.
We took the Ice Flyer Lift - a chair
lift to go to the Titlis Glacier Park, an area offering easy snow
games like snow tubing, snow scooter rides, sledging etc. After
a few hours there and a thorough fill of snow games we descended
from Titlis and got back to Brienz in the evening.
The next morning we headed towards
Schilthorn – a summit from where one can get panoramic views
of all the Bernese Alps Mountains like the Jungfrau, Mönch
and Eiger. There is a circular viewing platform on Schilthorn with
a revolving restaurant called Piz Gloria which has been made famous
by shooting of the James Bond movie ‘On her Majesty’s
secret service’. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Schilthorn,
the whole place was shrouded in mist and we couldn’t see any
of the famous mountains. We came down after a while and on  reaching
the cable-car base station at Stechelberg decided to walk to Trummelbach
Falls.
The road from Stechelberg to Trummelbach
Falls runs in between meadows of bright yellow flowers, surrounded
by mighty mountains and waterfalls. It was a most wonderful half
an hour walk and we were lost in the beauty of the landscape around
us. Trummelbach is a waterfall fall created by the confluence of
melting snow from the glaciers of Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau and
located inside a mountain cave. We had to take an elevator to the
top where the tour of the waterfall cascades begins. The thundering
stream of water cuts through the hard rock with a deafening sound
and the reverberating noise made Soham and Srishti shout at the
top of their voices to make themselves hear each other. The stairs
and caves are all damp and often one is sprayed with water from
the cascading falls bouncing off the rocks. There are viewpoints
created for tourists all along the route and one can admire the
force and fury of water from real close. It was an awesome experience
for us and my children loved every moment spent at Trummelbach.
 Our
final day in Switzerland and we had to see one last attraction –
the Ballenberg Open air museum near Brienz. This is a unique concept
which showcases rural Switzerland as it was in the bygone days.
Spread over sprawling acres of hilly forests and meadows, the museum
boasts of century-old buildings from all over Switzerland, farmyard
animals and demonstrations of traditional crafts. We saw bakers
putting dough in huge coal-fired ovens, cheese-maker stirring up
a huge cauldron of curds and whey (he was even offering glasses
of whey to visitors), farmers threshing grain by beating their flail
to synchronized beats and ladies in old-style pinafores weaving
baskets or knitting sweaters. We walked through a forest path to
a place which had farm animals and it was such a delight to watch
the donkeys and rabbits tear away the grass from our hands and munch
on hungrily! We hurried through a good part of the grounds in under
two hours as we had very little time on our hands. It was a pity
we couldn’t spend more time here and left the place after
buying packs of their freshly made cheese and chocolates.
We left Brienz on a wistful note
that evening and promised to visit this delightful place again.
I had discovered Brienz to be my ‘dream come true’ -
breathtaking beauty amidst tranquil surroundings!
About The Author:
Moumita Deb is a Software Engineer based in Mumbai,India
and currently on a break from her chosen profession to pursue her
other interests of traveling, writing and volunteering with NGOs.
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