Hiking the Bernese Oberland Switzerland

To write my blog I find I need a time pressure, sitting in an internet café having to put coins in every hour would do it, but in a home environment with my own computing device and a kettle nearby I find that all that happens is I drink tea.
I've had about 5 cups of Camomile tea in this attempt, I don't usually drink Camomile tea but I'm feeling a bit snufflely so thought some hot tea night help. The cup is also quite small, hence 5 cups, and I usually only drink 2 thirds of it because the bottom bit had gotten cold.

Perhaps I'll write about tea instead for a while, here is a great quote about tea making from The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie:

Muriel: Tea is a herb that's been dried out so to bring it back to life, you have to infuse it in boiling water. That is boiling water and everywhere I've been in this country, they slap down a cup of tepid nonsense, you know, with the tea bag lying beside it, which means I've got to go through the ridiculous business of dunking it in the lukewarm piss waiting for the slightest change of colour to occur. And at my age, I haven't got the time.

So anyway, to Switzerland. I flew into Basel airport which borders France and Germany as well, and the first notable thing were the bicycles everywhere. Outside the station there was probably a few hundred, I thought this was a great thing to see. None of this 'we can't have bicycle lanes because we don't have the space' nonsense you get in New Zealand and the UK. Switzerland is also small and most of it is covered in Alps but they still found space to put bike lanes in.
I stayed in the YMCA because it was cheap and near the station, and got the train to Lauterbrunnan the next day.

This map shows the route. Lauterbrunnen> Wengen> Grindlewald> Meiringen

More about tea, in the first village I stayed at Wengen I had a lovely little room with a kettle, cup and spoon and some sweetener but no tea or coffee, which was a good start but it would have been even better to have a couple of sachets of tea and coffee to really complete it. In Grindlewald I stayed at a YHA which was in some nice old building which reminded me of a dream I had once, there was a coffee machine but they charge 3CHF for one, during breakfast time the coffee from the machine was free, which was just as well because it was disgusting. Meiringen was the most expensive place I stayed had no kettle at all in the room, nor did it have any pictures, or accessible plugs, or wifi or much security it was turn out. They did have reasonable coffee available at breakfast time. You can of course go to a café and buy a coffee but that will cost about 4.50 CHF which is about 3 pounds or 6NZD, which is a bit much for a hot drink.

Cycling in Jersey

Jersey - famous for Bergerac, milk and cream, royal potatoes and for being a tax haven. Income tax is actually a flat 20% introduced during the German occupation during WW1 and GST was only introduced in 2008 at 3% rising to 5% in 2011. The economy is based on financial services at 40% and only 9% for hotels, restaurants and bars which at first glance look like the dominant industry.

It's a nice place with a good network of cycle lanes, lots of nice sandy beaches and great food. We booked very last minute and stayed at Au Caprice Guest house opposite Saint Aubin's bay only 10 min walk from Saint Aubin village. We mostly cycled around, walked around and ate food. We did visit a castle in Gorey called Mont Orgueil, one of the best examples of medieval castles in Europe full of oubliettes and stone staircases, there's even proper dungeons.

Notes:
The ey at the end denotes an Island
Bergerac ran from 1981 to 1991