over the Brunig, from Meiringen over the Grimsel come the travelers,
passing on their way the Lake of Brienz, with the waterfall of the
Giessbach, on its southern side.

From Berne over Lake Thun, from the Rhône Valley over the Gemmi or
through the Simmenthal come the tourists, seeing as they come the white
peaks of the Oberland. And Interlaken welcomes them all, and rests them
for their closer relations with the High Alps by trips to the region
of the Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, and Mürren, and the great mountain
plateaux looking down upon them. Interlaken is not a climbing center.
Consequently mountaineering is little in evidence, conversation about
ascents is seldom heard, and ice-axes, ropes, and nailed boots are seen
more often in shop windows than in the streets.

Interlaken is not like some other Swiss towns. Berne, Geneva, Zurich,
and Lucerne are places possessing notable churches, museums, and
monuments of the past, having a social life of their own and being
distinguished in some special way, as centers of culture and education.
Interlaken, however, has little life apart from that made by the throngs
of visitors who gather here in the summer. There is little to see except
a group of old monastic buildings, and in Unterseen and elsewhere some
fine old carved chalets, but none of these receives much attention.

The attraction, on what one may call the natural side, centers in the
softly beautiful panorama of woods and meadows, green hills and snow
peaks which opens to the eye, and on the social side in the busy little
promenade and park of the Höheweg, bordered with hotels, shops, and
gardens. Here is ever a changing picture in the height of the season,
in fact, quite kaleidoscopic as railways and steamboats at each end of
Interlaken send their passengers to mingle in the passing crowd.