Since we were in Switzerland, we had to visit some mountains, so today we went to Niederhorn (just above Lake Thun) with the two Franks (Rita's dad and brother) and Annette. We drove along the northern shore of Lake Thun to the base station of the Beatenburg funicular railway.  We were amazed to find that they had a special ticket for international visitors for 10 francs, which was much less than what the locals pay for the same ride. Clearly, Switzerland is feeling the tourism pinch from their strong currency and is doing something about it. As we waited in the ticket office, I was amazed to see a barge travelling on Lake Thun. We saw it again later in the day, and it was a working barge carrying loads of gravel (dredged from the bottom of the glacial Like Thun).

Having taken the funicular up to Beatenburg, we then transferred to a gondola for the ride up to the top of Niederhorn.

The view in all directions was spectacular, whether it was across the lake to Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau…

or looking over the back of Niederhorn to the valley below.

During the day there were lots of paragliders taking off from Neiderhorn, catching the thermals to soar high above us and then gently gliding down through the valley to land near the lake below (and sometimes in the lake). We caught this guy on point of take-off. He was the last one to go, just before the weather turned a bit nasty in the valley below.

During the day, I listened to the Hawks-Essendon game on my iPhone. At half-time, as the Hawks were on their way to a 96-point win, I couldn't resist sending an email to David (my son), telling him that I felt like I was on top of the world!  Needless to say, as an Essendon supporter he was not quite as happy as I was (but at least he did make me a DVD of the game!). Back in Bern that evening, we watched the London Olympics Opening Ceremony.