John Edward Cooper’s Notes

DAY 1
ARRIVAL IN INTERLAKEN
You fly to Geneva and transfer to the extremely comfortable four-star MGallery Royal-St. Georges Hotel for seven nights with breakfast and dinner. The beautifully located hotel in Interlaken’s historic centre, just a few minutes’ walk from the station has real pedigree, welcoming guests in style and comfort since 1908. Established during the golden age of travel and kept tastefully up-to-date ever since, it seamlessly blends a classical heritage with modern facilities to meeting your every need. The grand public areas with their traditional furnishings are reminders of an opulent past when only the well-to-do could afford to visit such fashionable haunts. The bedrooms (either in modern or traditional style) have everything you’d expect from a contemporary hotel with this rating – with well appointed bathrooms, satellite TV, safe, mini bar and free wifi.[i] This evening we dine in the hotel’s ‘Les Miroirs’ restaurant – before perhaps retiring to the hotel’s art nouveau bar for a digestif.





[i] I consider the statement “The bedrooms… have… free Wi-Fi”, presumably promulgated by Royal-St. Georges to Riviera, to be culpably mendacious, because the “free” access to Wi-Fi expired after a few days.

Janet wrote in her journal: “Up at 4am — [it was] just light. Mr. B[lackbird] and others [were] singing.”


I haven’t reproduced any of the other pages, on which I scribbled notes during this holiday. On the note “reservoir — bridge”, my colouring the reservoir blue, the hillsides, etc., green and the route red was done some days after the event.

I scribbled in my notepad: “Got up, 4.20am.” Showered. Shaved, then Janet packed the shaver and mirror in one of the suitcases. The Asus netbook/tablet computer, the power supplies for both computers, and various connectors, adapters and power supplies, also went in that suitcase; but I carried the Samsung notebook computer and the WD Elements HDD in my rucksack, along with medications…, camera, etc. We padlocked and strapped up that suitcase, as had previously been done with the other one, and so were ready. Bryan the taxi driver arrived at 5.45am; everything was loaded, including ourselves; and we set off. “We were on our way up Grimsby Road,” Janet wrote, “when I realised I’d forgotten to put my wedding ring on, so we retuned home. I was in a panic when I couldn’t find it — then wondered if it was in the washing machine with the kitchen-towel [that I’d used after] I’d washed my hands just before leaving. It was! Phew! I would have been devastated if I hadn’t found it.” We set off again.


Our route, plotted using Google Maps (click to enlarge). Google Maps wanted to go anticlockwise along the M60 orbital motorway; but I altered the route to go clockwise, for I remembered that the route we took was along the “M60 (E[astbound])”, and that we went through Stockport.

We proceeded, as I scribbled in my notes, along the “A180, M180, M18 (N[orthbound])” and “M62”. Just before we reached the junction of the M18 and the M62, I noted that we passed over a “wide river”.


Dutch River, as it appears in Google Street View

My subsequent investigation using Google Street View revealed that it isn’t as wide as I thought. It’s the Dutch River.

The Dutch civil engineer Cornelius Vermuyden diverted the River Don northwards to the River Ouse in 1626–1629, to drain the marshland of Hatfield Chase at the behest of King Charles I. It made the new lower Don — known as the Dutch River — navigable for barges, so that coal from the South Yorkshire Coalfield could be transported to the new confluence, for transfer to seagoing vessels. —Wikipedia

The next note says “reservoir — bridge”, which to me is always a memorable landmark on the trans-Pennine motorway: the Scammonden Reservoir, over the dam of which the motorway passes; and the single-arched, open-spandrel, concrete Scammonden Bridge carrying the B6114 (Saddleworth Road) across the motorway cutting.


Scammonden Reservoir and Bridge, as they appear in Google Street View. The view ought to have been from the westbound lane, facing forwards, not (as here) from the eastbound lane, facing rearwards; but in the former view, the bridge was partially hidden by two large vans.

The notes continue to record our route and progress: “M62, M60 (E[astbound]) — at one point [we went] slow in [a traffic] queue, but didn’t stop — [we passed] under [the] “iconic” Stockport Viaduct — M56.”


“The ‘iconic’ Stockport Viaduct”, as it appears in Google Street View

We arrived at Manchester Airport, Terminal 1, at 8.10am.
 At the location of the EasyJet check-in desks there was a man checking boarding passes; and when he saw that ours included the letters “SB” (i.e. “speedy boarding”), he unhooked a tape barrier and let us through into a separate area. Check-in was automated: one put a case on a weighing machine, then presented the boarding pass under its scanner; and the machine printed out the long, barcoded tag that had to be hooked around the handle of the case and attached to itself. The same was done for the second case; then we put them on a conveyor, where the barcodes were scanned automatically and the cases whisked off to who-knows-where.
 Going through security was reasonably straightforward. As usual, I took off trouser-belt, jacket, watch, rings, and removed my wallet from the trouser pocket, putting them all in my rucksack. I took computer, HDD and camera out of the rucksack, and put them separately in the tray. I walked through the security scanner-portal without it beeping; and my stuff rolled through the scanner-tunnel, also without incident. Janet fared similarly — and although her hand-luggage was diverted aside for inspection, the officer only waved a long-stemmed “lollipop” over it; it didn’t have to be opened and searched.
 We were airside at 8.40am. Janet bought a bottle of 7Up Free from Boots. I decided, despite the earliness of the hour, to have a beer at the upstairs pub, “The Grain Loft”; and I chose a pint of San Miguel. At Wetherspoon’s in Grimsby I’d expect to pay £3.08 for it; here, it was a whopping £6.35!


Friday 12 July 2019 — 09:22:04
The Grain Loft, Manchester Airport


Friday 12 July 2019 — 09:23:06
The Grain Loft, Manchester Airport

The scheduled departure time was 10:50, but the listing on the screen showed an expected departure time of “11:14”, alternating with the message: “Wait in lounge”. We visited Boots with the intention of buying something for lunch, but I didn’t fancy any of the mayonnaise-lathered items. According to the boarding pass, the boarding gate was due to close at “10:20”; but the instruction “Go to Gate 10” didn’t appear on the screen till ca.10.30am. We joined the shorter “speedy boarding” queue at the gate, so were among the first to be allowed through. There were flights of stairs down to a ground-floor waiting area, and we were allowed through a tape-barrier to the smaller “speedy boarding” waiting area. At 10.52am the reason for the delay was announced: it was for an engineering inspection of the aircraft, for on the incoming flight it had passed through a storm and there had been a lightning strike. We were allowed through to the tarmac to enter the aircraft by boarding stairs at ca.11.10am. I’m not sure precisely what model of aircraft it was; the safety card was headed “Airbus A310/320”. We had extra-legroom seats next by an exit-door on the left. The aircraft started moving at 11.36am, but there was taxiing and waiting, taxiing and waiting, till we took off, exactly an hour late, at 11:50 BST. During the flight, I availed myself of the in-flight “meal-deal”: a bacon roll with brown sauce, a 50cl bottle of water, and a small can of Pringles; Janet had a Coke Zero to go with the food she’d bought at Boots.
 We landed at Geneva Airport at 14:10 CEST (so, only 30 minutes late); Janet and I boarded the shuttle bus at ca.2.20pm; the queue for passport control was quickly dealt with; and we got to the baggage-reclaim carousel at ca.2.40pm. It took several minutes, though, for the carousel to start to move and for luggage to start to appear. We didn’t immediately see the Riviera party after leaving the baggage-reclaim area; but after a bit of searching, we found them. There were the tour manager and the driver, neither of whom carried a very prominent Riviera sign. He, the driver, spoke French, but she didn’t speak much French. His accent sounded strange, and I noticed a trilled r, not the more usual-for-French guttural one. I wrote “26”; was this the number of people in our party, who arrived from Manchester Airport? The tour manager was still waiting for the arrival of a flight from Gatwick Airport; but it was decided to escort us to the waiting coach, a double-decker, stow our luggage aboard, and get us seated. Janet and I chose the front seats to the left. At ca.3.10pm, she gave us an update: although the later flight of the other party had now landed, their baggage was still awaited. They eventually came aboard — in total, I think we were 34 in number (smaller than the usual Riviera group-size of a somewhat excessive 50) — and we set out at 3.45pm. The tour manager introduced herself as “Jan”, and our driver as “Antonio”.[ii]

[ii] A scribbled note nearby, “Брендъ”, using Cyrillic characters, reminds me that on the other side of the aisle on the front row sat a couple more or less our age (in fact, slightly more than). She later moved to the seat behind us, though, and it was while she was there that he addressed her as “Brenda”. I noted her name using Cyrillic characters in the hope that if he was watching he wouldn’t be able to tell what I’d written. They were the same Clive and Brenda who, along with Elizabeth and Gary, sat at the same table as we did at dinner times. I’d forgotten that it was they who sat near us on the bus, but Janet remembered; for before we set out or during the journey, Clive expressed one or two complaints, and her first reaction when they joined us at the table for the first time was to think, “Oh, no!” He proved to be agreeable company, though, with about the same mix of sardonicism and silliness in his humour as we had.

Our likely route, plotted on Google Maps (click to enlarge). Cf. the route back, 19 July 2019.

From Geneva (“Genève” in French, “Genf” in German, Jan told us), we proceeded through a flat or gently rolling plain, parallel to Lake Geneva on our right beyond which were the Alps, and parallel to other mountains away to our left — the Jura Mountains, Jan told us. I wrote “E25 E62 (1)”, which is what I saw on a sign we passed, indicating the various route-designations given to the road we were taking. I noticed that the motorway exits were signed “SORTIE”.
 Jan told us that eating out in Switzerland was expensive, but that one could purchase meals for a reasonable price at the Coop opposite Interlaken Ost railway station. She at first used the English pronunciation ˈkəʊˌɒp, but went on to say that it was pronounced kuːp. (I doubted that, because I figured that in German it would be pronounced koːp.) As for Swiss wines, she recommended “Fendant” for white and “Dôle” for red.
 We passed fields of sunflowers, vines, fruit trees covered with long, wide strips of clear plastic, and grain (wheat, and other). We also passed fields of tall, vertical plants with long, narrow, darkish green leaves; I thought initially that these might be maize, but they lacked the tassel of inflorescence at the top of each plant, that one would expect from maize, nor was there any hint of the formation of ears. (I think we did pass a field of maize later, with these features visible, and with leaves that were shorter.)
 I think it was an announcement of Jan’s that prompted me to write “Lausanne”, on the outskirts of which we turned left and I wrote “E23 E25”. (If I’d included what I previously put in brackets, I’d perhaps have additionally written “(1) (9)”; but I thought that this was getting too complicated!)
 I noticed signs indicating turn-offs for Besançon, over the border in France. I remembered that our headmaster Dr. J. W. Grieve, who taught us French in the second year at Fleetwood Grammar School, had got his doctorate there. He, like Antonio, pronounced his French with a trilled r, so I wondered whether that pronunciation was endemic around here.
 At a further junction, I wrote “E25” and “tunnels”, for we passed through a few. Jan announced that we were passing by “Lake Neuchâtel”, and would be stopping at a place where there were free toilets (or at least they had been, the last time she was there). This proved indeed to be the case. This was our first experience of the costliness of Switzerland; a “tall” espresso and a Coca Cola Zero cost us 10.15 CHF.




Friday 12 July 2019 — 17:18:36
A mo'caffé.bar.ristorante
Restoroute Rose de la Broye 3
1470 Lully

Janet wrote: “My sciatica had kicked off and I had such bad back pain I was nearly sick. However, after a comfort break I recovered, almost.”
 As we continued in the direction of Bern (“E25 E27”, I noted), we passed a field with a small herd of bison (so our first sight of Swiss bovines was not brown-and-white cows with bells!). In the environs of Bern, there was a junction, at which we turned right, proceeding along route (as I wrote) “(6)” (the signs had lost their E-numbers!). I now noticed that the motorway exits were signed “AUSFAHRT”, but I hadn’t observed where the change of language had occurred. There was forest more in evidence now than before. The terrain was still flat or rolling, but mountains began to loom ahead.


Friday 12 July 2019 — 18:30:06
Perhaps the Niesen

At Spiez, the route ahead became “(8)”, as we proceeded with the large, long Thunersee to our left. Jan had told us that breakfast at the hotel was served from 6.30am to 10.30am, but before we arrived at our destination, she said that tomorrow we’d be meeting at 8.15am in the hotel reception.


Friday 12 July 2019 — 18:39:28
Road and rail on the south side of Thunersee


Friday 12 July 2019 — 18:45:54
Eastern end of Thunersee


Friday 12 July 2019 — 18:49:28
Entering Interlaken

Antonio took us past the hotel, and turned 180°-about at a broad junction before coming to a halt outside the hotel, so that we didn’t have to cross the street to enter the building. We queued up at reception to hand our passports over and receive them back again, along with a little black envelope containing two plastic room-key cards and a slip of paper with internet log-on details.





Then we had to wait in line for the single, not very sizable, elevator in order to convey our suitcases to the second floor. Jan, last of the group to go up, shared the lift with us on our urging. (Thereafter, apart from the last time on the last day, we went up and down to and from our second-floor room — Room 209 — by four flights of the central staircase.) The key-card worked first time. We got into the room ca.7.15pm, which didn’t leave us much time before dinner at 7.30pm. The room, pleasantly old-fashioned, with flower-wreath patterned plaster mouldings around the ceiling (which theme was repeated in the “pediment” of the wardrobe), was large, and the bathroom too was well more than adequate in size. The only thing we didn’t like about that, was that the shower was over the bathtub not in a cubicle. The bed — actually two beds pushed together — was huge: wider than it was long. Bathrobes and slippers were provided. Unusually for hotels in continental Europe, there was a kettle, with mugs, teabags, coffee sachets, and little sealed “jugs” of long-life milk.…
 We went down for dinner, to the large ground-floor salon behind reception appointed for us: actually, primarily a ballroom, with mirrors and frescoed walls and ceiling. There was initially a “welcome drink”: flutes of sparkling wine, perhaps prosecco. There was orange juice for people, such as Janet, who didn’t drink alcoholic beverages. It was perhaps at this stage (or maybe afterwards) that Jan handed out our “Regional Passes” that would give free travel on most trains, buses, boats and cable cars, and reduced fares on others. We would need them on our group travels for four out of the next six days, and for our own travels for the other two “free” days. They needed to be completed with name, passport number, and dates of validity.
  We sat at the first table as one entered the room. We’d been hoping for a buffet at dinner but it was table d’hôte. There was a sheet to be completed for one’s menu choices for the following day; and for that reason, the same people had to stay at the same table for dinner for the whole week. We were joined by two other couples — I can’t remember when we exchanged names, but they were Clive and Brenda (slightly older than we were), and Elizabeth and Gary (somewhat younger) — who proved to be pleasant company. The former were seasoned travellers abroad; the latter till now had holidayed in the UK.






This was the menu card for the first dinner, the only one of the week’s menus that I took away from our table. Normally, there were perhaps two choices of starter and three of main course, including a vegetarian option for the latter.

Because the waiting staff were busy, I went to the bar, the door of which was at the far end of the lobby near the hotel entrance, to get myself a drink. I chose one of the two beers on tap: Grimbergen Blanche, 6.0% a.b.v., a cloudy wheat beer with the spicy “cloves” flavour I’ve come to expect from such beers. It seemed strange that I should come across the brand “Grimbergen” for the first time in April in Dubrovnik and less than three months later encounter it again in Interlaken!



Swiss prices were reputed to be high, and one always expects to pay more for drinks in a hotel than elsewhere; yet the 6.90 CHF that I paid for the beer (~£5.75) was less than the excessive £6.35 I paid for a beer at Manchester Airport, even allowing for one being 500ml and the other an imperial pint (568.261ml)! I went to the bar for a second one before we finished.
 Service was a bit slow, and we didn’t get back to the room till ca.9.30pm. Janet did the unpacking activity.
 There was a shaving mirror in the bathroom, not as magnifying as my own mirror, and what’s more the lighting in there wasn’t very bright; so when shaving, I couldn’t clearly see the hairs of my face (or the lack thereof (so I hoped!) after shaving). I found that I couldn’t plug in my shaver in the bathroom, because the Swiss style sockets were in “lozenge”-shaped recesses and the pins of the “Schuko” adapter that I had wouldn’t go in far enough because of these recesses.



So I went down to reception with my shaver cord, and the man gave me a suitable adapter into which it would plug. Among other sockets in the bedroom near the TV set and tea-making facilities, there was a “Schuko” socket, so I was able to set up the Samsung computer on the nearby table and plug it in.



I used the user-name and password supplied on the little slip of paper with the room-key, to log on to the Wi-Fi.
 By “PAYS” on the “Regional Passes” there were insufficient spaces to write “UNITED KINGDOM”, so I decided to write “ROYAUME-UNI” instead. But I was unsure whether “Royaume” was masculine or feminine, i.e. whether the adjective should be “uni” or “unie”, so I looked up the spelling in the computer’s browser (22:18–22:22). Then I filled in the passes.
 In form, they were very like the railway tickets I received when I was on detached duty at Doncaster Jobcentre for a few days starting Monday 5 March 2001.




One of the railway tickets from 2001






The “Regional Passes”, punched and stamped on only one of the journeys, on “17.07”
Riviera named this tour, in which we were participating, the “Bernese Oberland” — which struck me as an odd mixture of English and German words. The “Berner Oberland” on the Regional Pass is wholly German; and, I suppose, to express this wholly in English, one would have to say the “Bernese Highlands”.

The passes went in neat little plastic folders, clear on one side, with illustrations on the other.




Folders for the “Regional Passes”

With each pass came an explanatory document “Berner Oberland Regional-Pass”,—



—which folded out into a poster-sized sheet, which included a standard map on one side, and a 3D-style one on the other oriented south-upwards, i.e. so that mountains such as the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau were uppermost.


“Berner Oberland Regional Pass” map

The map “Interlaken and Bernese Oberland” that I acquired on my Austria–Switzerland holiday in September 1971 was similar.


“Interlaken and Bernese Oberland”, 1971

Before the week was out, we’d acquired two other examples.


“Ausflüge und Angebote Thuner- und Brienzersee” (“Excursions and offers Thuner- and Brienzersee”), issued by railway company BLS


“Timetable”, issued by Jungfrau.ch

Meanwhile, Janet finished unpacking, mastered the modus operandi of the shower, updated her journal, etc., and was in bed at ca.11.15pm. I logged on to the hotel Wi-Fi also with the Asus netbook computer (23:13), checked my Gmail account (23:14), and followed up a Facebook notification with a “like” (23:15), before shutting down, and getting ready for bed.

[Saturday 13 July 2019]