Tuesday 15th September
A day of travelling, or at least half a day of travelling. We only have to go as far as Basel today, and this means we effectively have the morning in Murren.
The day dawns with crystal blue clear skies - how lucky we have been. Breakfast is a last chance for Jo to make sure she has sampled all the food on offer, even though she has had to restrict the quantities.
At breakfast I get the impression there is an 'end of term' atmosphere amongst the staff, one of them saying to another guest something along the lines of 'only another two weeks'. I see that the hotel closes completely from early October to early December. Later I ask the waitress who made this comment what she would be doing - returning to see her mother in Portugal; I think the staff are a fairly international group, probably with English being a definite requirement. I also get the impression that they are a fairly stable group as I noticed the Portuguese waitress in a photo from 4 or 5 years ago.
After breakfast we must tackle the terrible job of packing. Next time we go on holiday I am going to insist that when we leave home no suitcase can be more than half full. With time to spare we have one last walk around the village and return to the hotel to checkout and sit on the terrace to admire the spectacular views whist drinking hot chocolate.
Our train from Lauterbrunnen leaves at 14:01, giving us plenty of time to catch the mountain railway to Gutsalp and the cable-car down to Lauterbrunnen, possibly too much as we spent an hour or so sitting on the platform at Lauterbrunnen. We fill a small part of the wait with lunch; today is a special treat - an ice cream!
The train from Lauterbrunnen connects with another at Interlaken Ost that will take us to Basel. We will have 5 minutes to make the connection. I did wonder if our tickets would allow us to travel on an earlier train from Lauterbrunnen, but apparently not. In the end I need not have worried, The Swiss trains are timed with precision and we make the connection easily even though we have to swap platforms.
It surprises me how far it is from Interlaken to Basel, but two hours later we are in Basel. We now know the ropes and head for Hotel Euler, the one stayed in on the way, just outside the station across the tram lines - taking our lives in our hands again.
A rest in the hotel before Jo decides she would like to have another look at the shoes she saw on our way to Murren. The temperature is about 29C but undeterred we venture out. The assistant in the shop was encouraging, but there was nothing she could do about size 43.
We had dinner in a decent restaurant in the station (Lora), when we eventually found the entrance!
