Camping in Switzerland: Interlaken and Thun Castle

After exploring behind the falls in Lauterbrunnen we headed for Interlaken which literally means ‘between the lakes’ of Thun and Brienz… and drove to the Thun Castle.

  

Thun Castle, build between 1180 and 1190 by the Dukes of Zahringen is now a five floor historical museum and has fabulous corner turrets with spectacular views.

Standing inside the fireplace…

Emily and Katie inside one of the many turrets…

Loved this view… just gorgeous.

 

The so called museum wasn’t much of an attraction but it kept us entertained for a minute in-between climbing up to each corner turret where we played ring around the rosies, danced and took pictures.   Ryan in Medieval time out…

     

From the Thun Castle we headed along the Thun Lake to the St. Beatus Hohlen caves.

 

We parked in the parking lot and seriously ran uphill for ten minutes trying to make the last tour of the day.  The St. Beatus Caves are an extensive cave network located near the village of Beatenberg, above Lake Thun. 

“Saint Beauts took up hermitage near the entrance of the cave system, probably in the 9th century.  Legend holds that Beatus fought and defeated a dragon who lived in the caves.    Saint Beatus’ grave is located between the monastery and the cave entrance.”    We wandered with our tour guide through a kilometer of cave tunnel, climbing up and down and pointing out stalactites and stalagmites.    In one section they turned off all the lights and had a dragon illuminated to explain the legend.  The little boys talked about the scary dragon in the caves for quite some time. 

After our cave tour we let the kids play on the playground for awhile and then hiked back down the hill to the van and drove back to our campsite for dinner… Spaghetti.  Hanging around our campsite was so much fun.  Everyone was exciting about cooking, eating, running back and forth from the playground, and hanging around the campsite. We haven’t been camping for almost 2 years and I’m excited to get back into it with older kids.  No babies and it was fabulous!  Luke was cracking us up with all his faces…  typical Luke.

 

Katie helping Luke be a superhero…