Photos by Stephen Harriman THIS IS MY favorite vacation spot. It's an area about the size of South Hampton Roads, from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront to downtown Suffolk and from Norfolk's harbor to the North Carolina border. I first saw the Bernese Oberland years ago when my collection of passport stamps was, well, hardly a collection at all. I have been back a number of times since, and I intend to return. There is something very special about this place.
Subsequent visits reveal new layers and dimensions in the relationship.
It develops into what we know as love. And finally there are the lake passenger ferries, trains, cog railways, funiculars, cable cars and passenger-carrying postal buses, all running like clockwork. It is this interlocking transport network that makes everything so accessible, so do-able. It is the transportation hub. Tourists have been coming here since the mid-18th century, and surrounding villages had become what passed for small resorts by the 1780s.