After an hour of puffing, the steam train reached its destination - the town of Brienz. This word means "flash". At least, that's what a friend told me. I couldn't confirm this on the internet. The town turned out to be very pleasant, albeit highly touristy.
For starters, I hobbled to the hotel to check in and leave my heavy hiking boots. The hotel was called "Bāren", with a garumzīme, meaning the length symbol of the Latvian language. This didn't surprise me all that much. Nowadays, designers love eclecticism, dragging in details from wherever they can. At the reception desk, I was met by a granny who joyfully informed me that her ancestors were from Latvia. They were the ones who founded the hotel. True, this was a few generations ago. I was in a hurry to dump my gear, and therefore didn't question her further.
The room was alright, retro, but quite cute, and even had a balcony. Unfortunately, in Switzerland they smoke everywhere, and a balcony is the most obvious place for that. I had to close the door to it. On top of that, right under my balcony was the hotel restaurant's terrace, where they were also smoking their lungs out. The room was advertised as "with a view of the lake", but this, as is often the case, was an exaggeration. In reality, almost the entire view was blocked by the crowns of huge trees growing right up against the hotel.
Leaving my stuff, I went to the already familiar "Coop" shop, deciding to have sandwiches for dinner. I bought bread, cheese, lettuce and tomato, and so on, and so forth. I sat on a bench, now with an honest view of the lake, and enjoyed the sunset, partaking of the gifts of the Coop. The receipt, though, was for about forty euros, well, I did buy a mountain of stuff, maybe even too much. In Switzerland, understandably, there's a lot of cheese, and one of the kinds is extremely thin strips rolled into little roses. I love cheese, and it's hard to resist.
The granny from the reception invited me to a concert at nine, she said "very good performers". Well, why not. I took a little walk along the promenade, returned to the hotel, and went to the dining room, where the "concert" was supposed to be. The latter turned out to be a performance by a middle-aged man and woman for a tiny handful of pensioners. Among these ten people, I was the youngest. The songs performed were old pop hits known to everyone.
I quietly slipped off my chair, and was out of there. I'm not quite old enough yet to listen to restaurant hacks, even if they are of high quality.
