Day 33: Land of My People August 2
Burgdorf to Thun via Langnau 38 miles
We saw alps! Oh did we see alps! And they are HUGE!!!! We followed rt 24 up the Emme River and it started looking really mountainous all around us. We were in the valley so the ride was pretty easygoing. We traveled back and forth across the much more narrow valley a bunch of times. Up to Langnau, we climbed a lot but didn't feel it because it was really gradual for most of the day. We crossed and passed so many covered bridges! It felt like we were in Vermont. This area is very beautiful, made more so because every village has up flags of their village, Bern canton, and Switzerland. These colorful banners gently flapping in the breeze looks like a jousting tournament in Game of Thrones. The flags are so cool too. Most of the villages are right on the river so their flags have blue or a fish or an oar. They are so expressive. Especially the canton flag of Bern which is a ferocious black bear. The blazon ( oh yeah... New word!!!) of Langnau is 3 fir trees on a red background. Not very ferocious but appropriate for its location off the river and more up in the hills surround by pines. We made it to Langnau (home of the Aeschlimanns) at about noon. We went to the museum on the history of the region and of the village and learned a lot about the many different products made in Langnau over the years; cheese, glass, barrels, shoes, linen, and more. We also learned that Langnau is the sunniest village (meaning it gets the most sunny days) in Switzerland! Not too bad to be from an important town. After the museum, we cycled around the area which is much bigger than we thought it was and had a coffee at a local tea shop. Most stuff was closed since it was Sunday so after our look around, we headed back down to the river Emme and joined the route 94 to the 84 to get to Thun, our destination for the day. The route climbed a little more before we went down to the lake but we had a tail wind so it was easy going into town. We made it into Thun early, so we went to the train station to see about tickets to Milan tomorrow. Bruce went in and had success! We bought tickets for us and for the bikes to Italy for tomorrow afternoon! Yay!
After the train station, we made it to Daniel and Karin's house, our hosts for tonight. They cycle toured in the states on Route 66 and are trying to move to Colorado. He is an architect and has won many competitions and he even showed us a house he built.She is a teacher and gets an hour and 45 min off for lunch. Wicked jealous! Karin made a lovely dinner and we ate out in their back yard. We went out on the town for dessert. We had dessert with lake front amazing views of the alps across the Thunnersee... Wow!!! We saw three very important and well known mountain from our seats; Eiger, Munch(Monk), and JungFrau(virgin). They were such gracious hosts and we hope we will get to host them some day! What an amazing day finished off with Toblerone Chocolate Mousse!
The World is Ours!
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