Interlude in Interlaken

Whilst British visitors go back to the time of Byron (and the Grand Hotel Beau Rivage opened in 1874!), the official Interlaken Tourism Association is celebrating the centenary of its founding in 1910, just after the opening of its ‘House Mountain’ Harder funicular, aptly named as half of the journey necessitated the construction of bridges or viaducts! To mark this occasion we are including this funicular ride for guests arriving in September 2010.

The British led the golden era of mountain climbing in the 18th and 19th centuries which saw the first ascents of major alpine peaks: Mont Blanc (Balmat 1786); Jungfrau (Meyer 1811) and Matterhorn (Whymper 1865). By the 1930s one major climb remained – although Barrington had climbed the Eiger in 1858, nobody had conquered the sheer North Face of the Eiger (meaning Ogre or Spear). Whilst repeated attempts failed in 1938, an Austrian student, Heinrich Harrer (who did not even have the correct boots), and his partners survived an avalanche on the ‘White Spider’; inspired by his motto ‘It is better to fall off than to freeze’, they became the first to conquer the North Face.

Recently, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, despite vertigo and a heart condition, climbed the North Face in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. From Interlaken you can follow his tracks - but utilising the cogwheel train that ascends to Kleine Scheidegg, then zigzags across the Eiger North Face to Jungfraujoch at 11,000 feet (as featured in the film ‘The Eiger Sanction’). More recently the dramatic failed attempt on the Eiger North Face, by Toni Kurz in 1936, was featured on Channel 4 in ‘The Beckoning Silence’ (also a book by Joe Simpson, author of ‘Touching the Void’). The ‘Golden Pass Rail Line’ running from Zurich through Lucerne and Interlaken to Lake Geneva facilitates excursions along this route and the medieval capital, Berne, is also just a short train ride away.