8 years ago I was living and studying in Rome, Italy. It was here that I gained my love for travel and adventure. At the time I was completely naive to the world around me. But these are for another post.
While in Rome I was constantly looking for weekend and extended weekend trips to take. It was through these searches that I came upon Interlaken, Switzerland. Unbeknownst to me, Interlaken is an outdoor adventure mecca. Complete with paragliding, hiking, sky diving, white water rafting, canyoning, bungee jumping and more, Interlaken has an activity to quench anyone's adrenaline needs.
Watching the videos and looking at the pictures of both the natural beauty and activities I knew I had to make this trip a reality. Unfortunately, I could neither convince any of my buddies to parttake and more importantly, I did not have the necessary funds to make this trip come to fruition.
Fast forward 8 years...
After working 5 years in the States for various consulting firms I found myself in London on a project there. I hadn't loss my quest for adventure or travelling and now that I was in the region I was going to take full advantage.
I arrived in London late in the summer of 2015 and immediately starting using weekends to explore places I missed while in Rome. Over the course of the next 8 months I visited over 20 countries and 30 cities in Europe. Not bad right?
Not bad at all in my opinion but there was still one trip that hadn't happened yet and that of course was Interlaken. The reason I hadn't gone yet was because the activities I wanted to do in Interlaken were canyoning and paragliding. Both required the warmth of summer and I had already missed the window for doing them in 2015. The plan was to wait for the first availability in 2016 and do them then.
This was good in theory. However, nothing is certain in the consulting world and on a Wednesday in April I was told to be in Singapore by Friday and start on a new project on Monday. And that was that, goodbye Europe...for now.
I arrived in Singapore, excited to be in a new place, a new country, a new continent and ready for more adventures. But Interlaken remained in the back of my mind.
It so happens that I was going to be in Croatia in June for yacht week and I decided then and there that I would add my Interlaken trip to that as well and the flights were booked.
I left Singapore late on a Wednesday night and arrived in Zurich after 16 hours of travel. This put me in at about 6AM Zurich time, on Thursday. I immediately got on a train and headed to Interlaken; I had two days to get my activities in before having to head to Croatia.
The train arrived in Interlaken at about 9 AM and I set off for the hostel to drop of my luggage. I did just that and trekked to the outdoors company I had planned everything with.
First up, paragliding. We drove to the top of the mountain outside of Interlaken and hiked for about 15 minutes to the take off platform. We strapped ourselves in and the flight down was nothing short of amazing. Raw beauty might be the best way to describe it.
I chose paragliding over sky diving just for the fact that it would last longer. Sky diving is definitely on the to do list though.
Following the paragliding trip, I headed back to the hostel, grabbed a quick nap and headed downstairs for the next adventure, bungee jumping.
I actually signed up for this one on a whim. It's not that I never wanted to go bungee jumping I just wanted to make sure I picked the right venue. Jumping from a bridge seemed a bit overdone and mundane. Interlaken offered a unique experience. Jumping over a mountain lake some 3000m up, from a Gondola. Yes, you read that right. You jump from the very same gondola that took you up there. Now that's bad ass!
Possibly the highlight of the trip. The view, the jump the adrenaline; all were top notch.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGuOYv5Eehd/?taken-by=_life.of.ty_&hl=en
That was enough adventure for one day and I headed back for some much needed rest.
Now, the original plan was to go canyoning. This was the reason I wanted to go to Interlaken in the first place. Unfortunalely for me, there were a couple rain storms earlier in the week that caused the water levels to be at unsafe levels and all canyoning trips in the area were cancelled. This was a real bummer for me but it gave me an opportunity to do something else that had been on my list for quite some time, white water rafting.
Most of the rivers in the region or fed by the melting snow caps of the surrounding mountains and are ice cold. Honestly, though, it was refreshing as you're in a pretty hefty wet suit and white water rafting is now exactly a lounging activity. But as the video below shows, the ride down was full of twists and turns, a couple of men overboard and a lot of fun.
In fairness, two days isn't enough in Interlaken. Not with all it has to offer. But I was crunched on time and only could muster 2 days there before having to take off for Croatia.
Anyone looking for a little adventure should put Interlaken on top of their list. Spend a couple days, spend a week, hell, spend a month. You won't be disappointed.
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