In Love with Lauterbrunnen

The high light of my trip to Western Europe – Lauterbrunnen – a little village, emerging out of an impossibly beautiful..no..breathtakingly picturesque..no..simply STUNNING landscape! Probably the most beautiful place all over Switzerland!

Even though we spent just 3 days there, we managed to fit in quite a lot but enjoy some leisure time all the same.

Imagine jumping out of a pane at 11,000 feet! Yup, skydiving, - I flew - with all the equipment and a tandem flight pilot of course!

(Did I mention that we saw Michael Schumacher..yehhhh!!!)

Something I noticed – Switzerland has a place called Grindelwald. It is also the name of one of the characters in J.K Rowling’s last Harry Potter series! He was Dumbledore’s friend in his teen years and a great wizard who later lost a famous duel with him. (Wonder whether she just made it up – coincidence or she actually incorporated the name from this place!)

I must mention the Rosti – a local dish made of potato, fried onions, with loads of veges or meat of your choice – yummm!! Ofcourse our friend Marc the Mac had a mouthwatering time here too(all over Europe actually!)

Also, the train station from Lauterbrunnen is a junction point for the trip to the highest point in Europe – Jungfraujoch. (I finally got the pronunciation right – it’s actually pronounced as Ungfrau!) But since I am not much of a snow person, I decided to go rafting in Switzerland’s glacial waters instead.

So, on the second day, we set off to Interlaken again (centre for skydiving and loads of other adventure sports) for our rafting adventure. After zipping into waterproof gear and being informed (read frightened) by our instructor, we set of on what was definitely the best rafting experience of my life!

Now before I continue to describe further, you must know that Interlaken gets its name because of the two lakes in the heart of the Bernese Oberland – the Thunersee and the Brienzersee. The first leg of the trip was awesome no doubt, what with freezing cold water welcoming us at every rapid and every turn of the raft! As we reached the last leg in the raft, what lay ahead of us was more striking, beautiful, and breathtaking than anything I had ever seen! Straight ahead, the silver glacial stream we were in right now merged into this vast expanse of clear torquish blue! You have to see it to believe it!

As we crossed from the stream into the lake, it magically changed from freezing silver to warm blue!


Talking about water, another nature’s beauty that we visited were the Trummelbach Falls.

The pamphlet read, “10 glacial waterfalls inside the mountain made accessible by tunnel-lift and illuminated. The Trummelbach alone drains the mighty glacier defiles of Eiger(3970m), Monk (1099m) and Jungfrau (4158m) and carries 20200 tons of boulder detritus per year. Its drainage area is 24sqkm, half of it is covered by snow and glaciers. Up to 20,000 liters of water per second. The only glacier-waterfalls in Europe inside the mountain and still accessible.” Beautiful!

Its funny you know – at the end of my trip to Europe, on our way to Paris airport, one of my friends Ashutosh said, “Deepti, you need to improvise your vocabulary a little.” When I asked why, he said, “The only thing that comes to your mind when you think of Lauterbrunnen or Europe for that matter is – Beautiful!!”

San Sebastian

Just 21km west of the French border, within the Basque country, lies Donostia-San Sebastian, the summer capital of Spain. During the summer months, every day in San Sebastian is a party!

Out of San Sebastian’s three beaches – La Concha, La Zurrlola and Ondarreta, our guide informed us that La Concha was made popular by Queen Isabel and is considered to be one of the most beautiful city beaches in Europe. I completely agree with Her Highness!

The highlight though was the tiny Santa Clara island right in the centre of La Concha Bay. Breathtaking!! A few friends of ours, an Australian couple actually swam across from the bay to the island – clear blue waters, silver sands, not to strenuous either.


When I talk of an aquarium, you might think, “oh, that’s just a kid’s thing, it won’t really be worth seeing.” It was actually quite the contrary! I was surprised by the sheer size of the aquarium, complete with an underwater tunnel called the oceanarium. It is an underwater tunnel where you are completely surrounded by water and feel that you are really submerged in the deep blue sea. It is so cool, it gave me a 360° view of electric rays, Morays, Lion Fish and loads of other marine life including a shark!

We also took a short hike to the top of a hill which had an old castle and a fortress built at the top, along with a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The view of San Sebastian from here is stunning, you can see the entire cost line with amazing surfs coming in!

The place we stayed was located in the heart of Parte Vieja (the Old Quarter). The entire area was dotted with San Sebastián's famous tapas (the only place in Spain were tapas are called pintxos, yum!!). The cobbled streets lined with Cathedrals, beautiful buildings and street musicians – gives you a lazy, cozy feel about the whole place!