After leaving Schilthorn we drove to Interlaken where we spent the afternoon looking around before meeting Simone at the train station. Apparently it’s a tourist centre and I could believe it with shop after shop selling Victorinox (Swiss Army knives), cuckoo clocks and yodelling marmots. I would love a cuckoo clock – there were some amazing designs – but once again the price and how to get it home prevented me. I took a brochure though – I can always get one by mail order or just return to Switzerland when I’m rich! I added to my collection of Christmas decorations with a box of very cool straw snowflakes from a department store, didn’t even cost that much. After collecting Simone we went back to the same department store and she bought me a fondue pan, meths burner and stand for my birthday, yay! We also got various flavours of Frey chocolate blocks and some packaged fondue mix to take home, and finally some kartoffel salade from the deli for Reece seeing as he’d missed out all through Germany.
When we got back to her parents’ place they were preparing cheese fondue for dinner – yum! I had already tried it when Simone’s friends sent some to her in NZ for her birthday, but I was looking forward to traditional Swiss-style with the proper pot etc. to see how it’s all done. It was so delicious but we didn’t manage to finish it! We tried kirsch (cherry brandy) which usually is either added to the fondue mix when making it, or you dip your piece of bread into it before dipping into the fondue. It’s very strong and not sweet like you might expect.
After dinner we were admiring Rudi’s collection of wine and liqueur glassse which brought on a discussion about alcohol and glassware. He told us about the Riedel glass factory in Kufstein, Austria, where he bought all his glassware and we decided to stop there on our way through Austria. He opened a bottle of some amazing aged something for Reece to try and I tried something that was Judy’s favourite but they were really both a bit strong for me. I guess I’m just not a connoisseur (yet?), but I love glassware so was really looking forward to the visit to Riedel.