Adventures in Interlaken: Culture Tours, Mountain Climbing, Ropes Courses, and an Unfortunate Incident Involving Hives

I usually visit a destination, really like it, and hope to come back someday. Sometimes I visit a destination, fall in love with it, and hope to move there someday. Interlaken, Switzerland can join Iceland, Oxford, the Scottish Highlands, Majorca, and Ireland in the "hope to move there" category.  As in, I was already asking locals about living costs and researching how to obtain a visa (it's apparently quite hard to get one as an American) before I had even left.

I am very much a creature of mountains didn't realize how much I missed the mountains in Colorado until I was surrounded by the Alps.  The photo above features one of lakes in Interlaken.  Interlaken itself means "between the lakes."

On my first day in Interlaken, I took the culture tour with Interlaken Free Walking Tours.  We started at an adorable little farm which featured adorable baby cows as young as one week and three weeks old.  I tried to emulate my selfie with an Icelandic pony with one of the baby cows.  Of course, the cows were a whole lot cuter before I broke out in hives, but more on that later.

Then, it was time to sample raw, fresh milk and visit the cheese cellar.  The farm was brilliant.

Immediately after drinking my sample of milk, a bunch of red spots appeared on my arm, but I thought it was just bug bits.  But again, more on that later.

Next, we visited a wood carver.  She was amazing!  The store was full of a wide selection of wooden toys, cuckoo clocks, and Christmas ornaments.

Oh, the store also had this adorable little hedgehog.  Which was too cute not to come on the rest of my adventures with me (hopefully it has not been crushed by the weight of my luggage yet).

---

Next stop was a Swiss chocolate shop, which was adorable as well.  Hot chocolates with little Swiss flags in them were waiting for us upon our arrival.

The last stop was a cheese tasting stop, which of course was adorable as well.

After one day of full immersion to Swiss culture, I went to bed rather early.  I woke up the next morning with hives all over my body.  No longer were they just on my arm, but they had spread to my face, neck, legs, feet, and other arm.  I spent a rather unexciting moment at a pharmacy where they told me it was bed bugs and gave me a prescription that was in German and I couldn't read.  The hostel did an extensive bed bug search and found none.  So I went back to the pharmacy and they said it was scabies, which is possibly even grosser.  But, alas, it turned out not to be either, but more on that later.

A group of us from Bus2Alps hiked up Harder Klum.  It took about an hour and a half and I once again was reminded of how out of shape I am!  The summit is 4,337 feet, which is lower than Colorado Springs by about 2,000 feet.  It is 10,000 feet lower than Pike's Peak.  I don't know how I ever exercised in altitude or how people can do Fourteeners! The view was definitely worth the hike though!

I was excited to see the following on the map of my iPhone.

As if I hadn't exercised enough, I went to the Seilpark ropes course afterwards, complete with ziplines and obstacles.  It was a lot of fun, but next time, I will definitely not climb up a mountain right beforehand.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a British telephone booth in Interlaken!

And of course, what is a trip to Switzerland without overpriced fondue?

But, seriously, look at how gorgeous my future home is.  Now I need to work on that visa...

When I arrived back in Florence, the hives were getting worse instead of better.  I nipped into a pharmacy where they said it looked like an allergic reaction and gave me tablets that were in Italian.  So with two medications: one in German and one in Italian and hives all over my body, I wasn't all that thrilled. Fortunately, there was an American school group visiting, which included their nurse.  She gave me American medication written in English, lots of advice, and said it was most likely an allergic reaction to something at the farm like the unpasteurized milk, something on the cows, or the hay.  I've never had hives before so it has been a bit freaky, but hopefully it goes away soon.  In the mean time, I'm not drinking any more milk or letting baby cows lick me, no matter how cute they are!

My next post will be about some more explorations of Italian cities.  Thanks for reading!