Switzerland

Guten Tag (Hello)!

Finally I decided to blog our well relished Swiss tour. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Some facts about Swiss before starting the blog:
1. Its situated in Western Europe, bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. So, we find different spoken languages across Swiss - French, German, Italian and Romansch
2. Neither Geneva nor Zurich is the capital of Swiss, it's Bern
3. Swiss is the birthplace of Redcross
4. Well known tennis players Roger Federer and Martina Hingis are from Swiss

Day 1 (09 September 2011)
The tour started pretty early (too early for Satty!) from Hebbar's house as we had to catch the flight from Gatwick Airport at 8:15AM. Flight journey wasn't long at all, it took shorter time than the time it takes me to reach office. With a beautiful bird's-eye view of Geneva Lake, landed at Geneva airport before noon. Since, we thought of covering the Golden Pass panoramic view on the same day, we bought tickets from Geneva to Interlaken which included Golden Pass train tickets from Montreux to Interlaken.

Our train journey from Geneva Airport to Montreux (from where Golden Pass Classic train journey is supposed to start) was just beside the never ending Geneva lake. This stretch was the beginning of the camera clicks to Swiss Album. Once we reached Montreux bahn (train) station, we had to catch the Golden Pass Classic Train in 3minutes which we achieved successfully.

We bought first class Golden Pass train tickets and it's interested to know how we bought it: We had reserved our seats in advance in the first class coach for 9£ each which was just 2£ more than the standard class. No one used their brain - will there be just 2£ difference between the standard class and the first class? when all other train tickets are costly, why is this ticket so damn cheap? Hmm, just 2 days before our tour is supposed to start we realized that it's just a reservation fee and not the actual ticket price. What to do now! We decided to let our reservation fee go and thought of buying the standard class Golden Pass tickets in Swiss. Because, first class ticket was double than the standard class and reservation fee is too little to lose. However, after landing in Swiss, we retained our first class seats till Zweisimmen (Namgenu haNakke kammiya!) and then switched to standard class till Interlaken West where our accommodation was booked. But, when we got into our first class coach, all of us felt that it's worth paying so much. It was really nice!

Beautiful Golden Pass Classic Train

Through out our journey we enjoyed the country side of Swiss, cute houses which had it's own specialty, and crystal clear Interlaken West lake (Thunersee).

 View from Golden Pass Train - Reminds me of song bettada melondu maneya maadi...

Checked into our Sonne Hotel (Sonne=>Sun in German) at late afternoon. But, we had to compromise with one of the rooms. Two couples were requested to share a family room as there was some unforeseen problem in one of the other rooms (as owner said). However, as Hebbar said 'we are family of friends' agreed for his request quite easily. The itinerary of Day 1 ended with short walk around the residential areas of Matten-Interlaken and dinner at Sonne Hotel.

Day 2 (10 September 2011)

Our plan for this day was to visit the most famous Jungfraujoch. We traveled to nearby city Wilderswil from Matten where our train journey to Jungfraujoch starts. Since the swiss train pass does not fully cover the tickets to Jungfrau, we had to buy additional tickets in Wilderswil. Tickets to Jungfraujoch were too expensive, 75% of our franks was just spent on this. On 2nd day of the tour itself we were left with very little franks and was thinking were to exchange some more currencies. Anyways, nothing to worry much..
Reached Jungfraujoch, top of Europe (3454m) via Zweilutschinen - Grindelwald - Kleine Scheidegg. I would say, we have been really lucky to get very nice weather on top of Europe which is very rare. It was really an unique experience with breath taking views at the top. Spent some time enjoying stunning views of the snow world and really enjoyed the glacier walking. We must have got the views extending to France, German and Italy, weather was that clear.

Jungfraujoch

On our way back from Jungfraujoch we followed the route Kleine Scheidegg - Wengernalp - Wengwald -Lauterbrunnen. It was the day of Jungfrau marathon which is one of the most beautiful marathons and world's long distance mountain running challenge. It's a marathon of ~45km, around 10km being flat and rest being mountain climbing and last 1km being steep downhill. It was good to see never ending queue of people running.

Jungfrau Marathon

Visited Trammelbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen which is world's only glacier falls. Really a worth visit, very powerful and clean waterfall. But, it's very hard to take photos as it's between the rocks and always illuminated by the artificial lights. Traveled back from Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost, had a good dinner in an Indian restaurant and then came back to our hotel.

Trammelbach falls

Day 3 (11 September 2011)

Started our 3rd day with challenging quest to find the train station with very limited time and without clear map. Anner's GPS rescued us to catch our expected train to Engelberg. From Engelberg to reach the top of Mount Titlis, we had to take a series of breath taking cable cars. Again being lucky, we were able to get clear panoramic views in Mount Titlis. Group enjoyed the Ice flyer ride too. Relaxed here for some time and made our return way to Engelberg in the scary cable cars. At the bottom most cable car station, found a real nice Indian veggie gaadi restaurant. Looked really decent and we had heard about this restaurant from many of our friends. Didn't think twice to eat delicious, mouth watering idli chutney, pav bhaji, vada paav, samosa and masala chai.

Mount Titlis

After Mount Titlis (Engelberg), we went to Lucerne. Lucerne is a beautiful city with a lake at city centre, but looked pretty commercial.

Luzerne Lake

This city has a beautiful Great Chapel bridge where we were targeted by hail shower.

Chapel bridge in Lucerne city

Anyways, enjoyed this rainy evening in our Swiss tour. Reached Interlaken late in the evening and enjoyed the sun set and showers through out our train journey. On this night, we had Satty's birthday celebration with great gift and with interesting discussions.

Day 4 (12 September 2011)

It was the day to visit and stay in Zermatt, city without any cars. Left beautiful Interlaken city in the morning. I was very disappointed that we didn't get a chance to walk along Interlaken lakes (Thunersee and Brienzersee). Instead Satty suggested me to walk in the train itself which was passing along the lakes. Anyways, reached Zermatt around afternoon. We didn't have any crystallized plan in Zermatt. But, when we were about to get down from the train, announcement made in the train made us to visit Gornergrat through a rack (cog) railway. Gornerghat is another mountain with panoramic views over gorner glacier.

Gornergrat Mountain

Very sunny day again, was really difficult to see around without the sun glass. We had Satty's birthday party at 3100 Kulm Hotel which is the highest altitude hotel in the Swiss Alps and it's at 3100m height. After stomach full lunch came down to Zermatt and then checked into our Hotel Carina. In the evening, we roamed around the beautiful small city, reminding Manali to whoever has visited.

              Streets of Zermatt

Day 5 (13 September 2011)

This was the last day of our tour. As our way back flight was from Geneva at 5:30PM and we didn't have any planned visit near Zermatt, we left Zermatt quite early (around 8:15AM) and then planned to spend some time around Geneva. Journey from Zermatt to Geneva Airport was quite relaxing with all windows open as much as possible!.

Safe locked our baggage in Geneva Airport and then traveled back to Geneva. After enjoying the beautiful views of Geneva lake (Lake Leman) and fountain in the lake, we planned to walk towards the flower clock. As most of the time, Anner was busy checking his smart phone. One friendly guy (as Anner explained) approached him, gave a shake hand and made Anner to give a bump. Very obedient Anner did everything as so called friendly guy asked and continued his happy walk towards the flower clock. Within a minute, anner was shocked to check his pockets. No wallet!! Now, that friendly guy turned into a mugger. Guys checked around the area, which wasn't helpful anyway. As a formality we went to a police station and filed an FIR. Who said switzerland has low crime rate?? Where did our luck factor go?? Anyways we were happy that Anner didn't lose passports and he wasn't alone. With this good and bad experience we came back to Airport. Had our quick lunch and some shopping in the Duty free and boarded the flight. Back to home in the evening.

Geneva lake

Moral of the day - sala kottu sneha kaLakonda, kalu kottu purse kaLakonda.
In future, whoever swims the Geneva lake (may be kids of 88bar), I request to look for Anner's purse. Who knows, thief must have taken 200£ from the wallet and must have thrown the purse into Lake. Identity of the purse: Anner and Rohini's wedding photo ;)

Suggestions (from my experience):
1. Be careful if you are booking a flight in easyJet, only one cabin bag is allowed which includes handbag or laptop bag
2. Golden Pass train journey is not the unique. You can also feel it when you travel around other locations like Jungfrua,  Titlis etc. However, Golden Pass train is the best!
3. Withdrawing frank from ATM is better than exchanging currency in outside Swiss. You get better exchange rate
4. Some useful links: Travel, map and weather: http://map.search.ch/ Golden Pass: http://www.goldenpass.ch/goldenpass_classic_montreux_zweisimmen_en

© Ashwini