Incredible Iceland #4 – Winter sunrise

On my final morning in Iceland, I decided not to explore anymore, in case I didn’t want to leave. Then the tears on the plane would be for Iceland, not Bordeaux…

…but I was going to see a sunrise on top of the Hallgrímskirkja. Sunrises don’t have to be painful ordeals at 5am. Head to Iceland in the winter months where the sun rises at 10am. Wake up bright (or not) and early (9am is barely early), eat a nice breakfast, drink a cup of coffee or two, and head up the Hallgrímskirkja for a grand spectacle. But…BRRRRRRRRRRRR!! It was COLD! Getting ready for Canada, yeah! Made me wonder why I missed the cold, and how I survived 14 Canadian winters.

The day before the sunset watch, I saw this beautiful scene by the Hallgrímskirkja in the morning. I wondered what it would be like to be at the very top of the tower, observing the rising of the sun as it happens.

The Swiss Escape, part 2: Interlaken and around

As I had mentioned before, Interlaken was my primary motivation to go to Switzerland.

Well, the first one was Interlaken, and the other one was Rhine Falls. A few years ago, I saw an introduction of Interlaken on a Chinese travel TV show and instantly fell in love with the picturesque and seemingly dreamlike landscapes of the place, and it became the one place I knew I needed to visit at least once in my life. As for Rhine Falls, coincidentally I also learned of it from a TV program. It would have been on my itinerary if I didn’t make a mistake in the timing, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to visit the largest waterfall in Europe during this Swiss trip. Perhaps next year.

Interlaken was my place during the trip. I gave Basel and Zurich to chef, but I said, we HAVE to go to Interlaken no matter what. Truth is though that I’ve heard that Interlaken is rather a touristy place, and I was anticipating something like Bruges or Amsterdam. (Sorry Bruges and Amsterdam, I keep picking on you two.) However, that was no issue for me and I told my friends, “I know it’s super touristy but I don’t care, I have to go!!”

Chef and I didn’t have much of a plan before going to Interlaken. I know that there is quite a variety of extreme activities that you can do there, like paragliding and canyoning, but with only one day, we discarded the thoughts of any of those. Indeed, it was the spirit of “not knowing what you are going to do until you get there” 😀

We took the earliest train from Basel to Interlaken at 5:59am, not-so-bright yet but certainly early. Thankfully the train station was very close to our hostel, and the journey was two hours, long enough for a nap before arrival. Even though I had wanted to make the most out of the sceneries on the way, I had to give in to drowsiness.