Getting To and Around Switzerland.

As wonderful as expected. Rockin' Rollin' Ridin', out around the Alps!

M has been determined that one of our jaunts should be a train tour of Switzerland, Easter seemed the perfect time to go to the land of chocolate. To make sure there were a few more Swiss Francs available for chocolate we decided to drive there rather than fly. With normal M25 and M20 traffic to contend with, it takes around 2.5 hrs to cover the 190km to the Chunnel(30 min crossing) but being holidays we allowed 3.5hrs.  When we arrived at the terminal we had to queue for nearly 40mins.  Our self satisfaction at choosing to have this extra padding in our time dissolved when we found out that delays earlier in the day had pushed all the departures back an hour or more. The terminal at the Chunnel is a lot nicer than any of the facilities at the Ferries though so we didn't mind too much.  Petal spent a while trying new perfumes and we had lunch at Leon's which is a lovely fresh Spanish chain.

Left: This is what the 'lollypop' trees look like in winter mum!  Center: Middle of town parking in front of our hotel.
Right: Fabulous sculpture (notice the map on the inside of his cape) of the town hero, Jean Talon (1662-94). The plaque explained that he populated Canada in his role of 'grand intendant', I guess the equivalent to Governer. It did go on to say that he populated it by arranging for the immigration of young single women - 'filles du Roi' rather than what you were thinking!

After a wonderful French breakfast we had a quick skip about town - the usual cake shops and Easter chocolate were all open.
The bottom photo shows the window display  of a butcher - Beautiful little savoury bites to fill a box with and take home for a dinner party. - Great idea! I'd love to see a vegetarian one open up somewhere in the Hills District!

It is about the same distance from Calais to Lucern (a beautiful Swiss town where a friend of M's lives with a spare garage space for us to leave our car in) as from Sydney to Melbourne. We decided to stop off in Chalons of Champagne  for the night since we'd been delayed. This is a lovely little town with some amazing food shops. After a quick walk around the next morning we headed down the A4, crossed the border, with a wave on from border security, to Basel for lunch. We stopped at a Migros mall (one of Switzerland's 2 big grocery stores, Coop being the other) but didn't go looking around outside because the rain was rather daunting, I had forgotten to pack my umbrella! Just out of Basel we stopped in at a Motorway Aires (services) to buy the Swiss motorway tax sticker, the fine is rather substantial for not having one. £28 and a red umbrella later we were off again.

Taken in the Bern hotel breakfast room.  The worst bit about being the 'only child' on the trip, for Petal, was the relentless attention from the lens!  M is obviously enjoying her discomfit immensely!  What a happy 'special' feature his camera has

M's friend very kindly drove us through pouring rain from his home, where we left the car, to Lucern's main train station. He detoured past the incredible medieval, covered bridge that crosses the Reuss river diagonally from the old town to what is now the modern city center. We had purchased the Swiss Pass for ticket-less travel around Switzerland on nearly all public transport (The Glacier Express and the narrow gauge line up the mountain from Zermatt to Gornergrat are the most notable exceptions to this but still give 50% discounts when purchasing tickets with the Swiss Pass.) I had forgotten to ask for the Family card that allowed Petal(under 16yrs) to travel for free with a Pass holding adult, so we popped into the SBB office to pick one up. After showing our passports one was given to us.  I did ask M's friend how to say 'parlez vous anglais?' in German but have had no luck in remembering it. English is said to be a German based language - I do see how some of the grammar is similar but the length of words and lip/teeth sounds make it almost impossible for my hopelessly mono-linguistic ears to comprehend.

Our first train ride. Luzern to Bern. Notice the clock - every station had one, the red dot second hand was not to be messed with, even when someone was about to step aboard the doors shut and the train kept to schedule!  We had bought  a salad and rolls to have on board for tea, no problem eating on public transport in Switzerland - rubbish bins under the tables are emptied at every terminal stop.

The Swiss passes were incredibly convenient, we never had to queue for tickets or dance around German(or the varied Schweiz-German dialects), Italian or French trying to make ourselves understood. M had an App on his phone that let him check train timetables so we could plan ahead without that awful feeling of 'we may miss the train by a few minutes and have to wait another hour' worry. Nearly everywhere we wanted to go had trains pulling through every 20-30 minutes and were nearly always at the station within 30 seconds of the timetable.

It was hard to decide whether the expense of the Swiss Passes would be worth it; we needed 6 days of travel but only 2,4 or 8 day passes were available to buy. We knew we wouldn't have time to visit any of the 450 museums they let you in for free with (being Easter the ones I would have liked to have popped into were closed!) so by buying an 8 day pass for £250 we probably just broke even compared to buying tickets as we went. The lack of pressure though really was worth it. There is a Youth Pass for less for 16-25 yr old persons. We chose to travel second class, first class had slightly wider seats and had less people in the carriages but the windows were just the same! You can only buy the Swiss Passes from outside the country, best to order them a couple of weeks before you plan to travel. They have a next business day postage service.  If you are flying in and leave it to the last minute you can pick them up (after having ordered and paid for them on line) from some of the airports. We saw lots of signs saying that the Eurorail passes were not valid at Schweiz stations.  http://www.swisspasses.com/?gclid=CMaB08iJ88QCFVTKtAodqjQAsQ

Bern: Bottom left is the Town Hall. Top left is one of main main streets of the old town, the arches lead into a 3m wide covered walkway past all the shops, the ramp looking things are doors that open to stairs leading to basement shops and nightclubs, many are still used for storage. Trams run down the middle.

From Lucern we trained to Bern, the Capital, for the night. The city emblem is the bear because this is said to be the first animal the founding father hunted down and killed when establishing the city. They have a bear park connected by tunnel to the ancient bear pit where the heraldic animals were once contained.  Their new park gives access to 'baths' in the Aare river that flows though the center of town. Entrance is free to visitors! (to look at the bears, not bath with them.) Back in the 1400's a huge fire gutted the city of its wealthy wooden houses. The neighbouring towns pulled together and helped rebuild Bern out of sandstone. Their new designs meant that Bern now has the largest area of covered shopping walkways in Europe. Wide and plentiful sandstone verandas meant that my new Swiss red umbrella was hardly used.

A few of the window displays behind Bern's covered walkways.

The next day we trained to Geneva via Yverdon-les-Bains, hoping to see the Swiss Fashion Museum but it was closed, of course. It was great that at every train station there are lockers that we could stuff our bags into so as to not look like peddlers. We managed to fit our four bags into one of the large lockers, 8 CHF for 12hrs or anytime up to that. The cold wind that blew a couple of girls around as they tried to practice a rope maneuver, for climbing or a circus act, on the front of a building was a little zephyr compared to what we would find at our next stop.

Genevé  Left: an ambitious church design  Centre: working out the tram circuits  Right: The Reformation wall

Back on the train we went to Geneva via Lusanne; these two cities are at the opposite ends of Lac Léman (some maps say Lake Genevé),  Both are in cantons that have French as their official language however, after initial greetings in both places people happily spoke easily understood English.  Lucky us, for Willow had chosen to stay at home and study for her finals looming close. The receptionist at our Genevé hotel said there was more Russian spoken in the city than English these days. Looking down the streets of designer shops - everywhere we went, it is easy to see what attracts the Novayinghy(obviously not in Russian script but that's what it sounded like - she said it meant new money).
It was freezing cold with the Russian wind (I'm not being racist - that is what a local told us it was) but we still clicked away on our cameras. What we thought was Mt Blanc (looked like the symbol on M's pens) turned out to be Aiguille Verte - a whole 700m shorter. We buzzed around on the trams and buses and overheard a 'discussion' between a group of Chinese tourists and a posse of ticket collectors at one stop. The ticket guys were trying to tell the tourists that the Swiss transits they had(a pass that gets you from the airport to your hotel) weren't valid for other journeys. Because none of the Chinese spoke any of the Swiss languages or English, things started to get quite fraught; finally a chap who spoke French and Chinese turned up and things seemed to get sorted.

The wind in Geneva was incredible cold. Left: Petal standing outside the United Nations Office for the Commissioner for Human Rights; wondering if  the Aussie Prime Minister had been called recently?
Right: The Lake was whipped up and giving the ducks and swans a hard time. Petal didn't get wet! Behind the marina are blocks full of shops with every established high priced designer with their own stores.

Left: The Geneva Train station is like a beautiful mall - good idea to have a library!
Right: the Lusanne Metro line down to the lake is quite steep so the stations are on a slope too. Notice the arrows and the obedient travelers waiting on the right side of the yellow lines.

The next day we backtracked to Lusanne, took their metro down to the lakeside and caught a ferry to Montreux. We wanted to stop off there and search for Freddy Mercury, a man of great voice.  The sculptor had been kind to his overhang.While we waited for the Ferry departure time, we sat out front of a cafe and had the best coffees and hot chips for a long time. The cold air and the sparkle from the lake probably made it taste better!

Waiting for the Ferry departure time on the die of the lake at Lusanne

Aboard the Ferry.

Most of the architecture in this part of Switzerland is French looking. The sun blessed us with some wonderful sparkle.

As we chugged up the lake we were surprised at how much of the hillside was covered in vines. We had never thought of Switzerland as being a wine producing country but going by the huge vineyards, they must be. There were two roads running parallel to the lake edge; one was high up with gigantic via ducts and tunnels, cutting through the hillsides and evening out the valleys. In Montreux, a Manga Festival was in full swing so as I lined up to order lunch I was surrounded by warrior women with scarily authentic looking swords and guys dressed in some sort of rabbit onesies. This is an area of 'literature?' that I am sadly lacking any expertise!

Left: In front of Montreux's grand hotel on the train platform, it looks a lot like the Chateau Sorbet M built for the girl's Sylvannian animals. Fabulous view down to the lake and mountains between the buildings - could almost make you miss your train . Right: Freddy.

From Montreux we trained up to Visp then changed to the Zermatt train that felt like a rollercoaster as it locked onto special caterpillar tracks in the steepest parts. M was a bit wary of the drops away from the track - crashing down to the River Vispa was not his idea of a happy ending to his rail extravaganza! Up at Zermatt the only combustion engines are the emergency services and a limited number of delivery trucks. Everyone walked or used the little lunchbox shaped electric taxis zooming around like some Pixar film. Consequently consumables were a bit pricey at the top of the Matt valley.  We stayed at the Perren Hotel, 3 star price(adjusted for Zermatt) but with the feel and facilities of a 4.5 star. Our room had its own wakeup call around 5:30 am as the funicular rail rumbling past close by getting the Gornergrat staff up to work before all the eager beaver skiers arrived for the second run of the day.

Left: M 'acting' an anxious face for the photo after looking down the chasm. Right: Much more relaxed on the flat heading for Lucern - the flat doesn't last long through the Golden Pass route!

Genuine joy at not having to climb the mountain? It was the tail end of the ski season - We'd passed all the professional skiers at the Visp train station as they headed down and back to work on Easter Monday evening.  

 As we backtracked again to Montreux a couple of days later, we were pleased to see more clear skies.  The Golden Pass Railway line has three different gauges between Montreux and Lucern. We enjoyed our only 1st class leg of the journey with roof line windows to watch all the chalets, goats, cows and snow topped peaks as we went trundling past. We had a waiter offering snacks but Swiss rail food and drinks is no better than anywhere else in the world. We did buy a yodeling Marmotte for Willow - the little prairie dog rodents were still hibernating so absent from the scene, just like her. We stopped off in Zwisserman for lunch at the Pony Cafe then got onto another train(change of gauge) to travel through to Interlaken. More beautiful scenery. Interlarken is another tourist trap - for very good reason so I will tell more in another epistle.

Left: First class style.  Right: It really didn't matter what the seats were like, the scenery stole the show!

Is M looking chilled out from the snow or from what he thought was Fanta in the vending machine?

Even from inside the train you knew when you were about to pass one of the giant Cow Barns - very strong manure smell!

Our lastish train ride - coming into or leaving Lucern.

The next day we left Interlarken Oust(east) and headed back to Lucern.  We picked up the car after a final train journey out to M's friend's suburb (this was a bit scary as the train wouldn't stop at some stations unless the stop button was pushed, similar to the buses at home. Of course in our anxiety we pushed it a stop too early - luckily someone else wanted to get off!)  We waved goodbye to the tracks and drove around Vierwaldstarttersee (the lake Lucern's river runs into) to Weggis. From here our hotel terraces(first time poor Petal was treated to her own room instead of having to be in a triple with two noisy sleepers!) gave us brilliant views of Mt Pilatus, Rotstock and two other peaks between them. No sleep-in for Petal though because M had arranged a knife assembly session at the Victorinox showroom in the Swiss Knife Valley early the next day. This was just a 30min drive into Brunner at the other end of the lake! (See another blog for more details if you're a knife fan.)

Lots of Ferries on the lake, Vierwaldstarttersee.
The one heading our way in this photo is a fully functioning paddle steamer. It may have been there in Mark Twain's Day. He was a great traveler - his comment that 'This is the most charming spot I have ever lived in...'  is proudly reproduced in a memorial on the Lake's edge.

The Magnolias were in full bloom in Weggis, There were all sorts of varieties and at least one house a block had one.
Every village around the lake had very distinctive steeples, if they looked too normal they were painted in bright colours.

We drove out from Weggis early the next morning too, with a Ferry crossing(1.5hrs) deadline from Calais to Dover at 17:15 that evening; short stops for cheap continental Diesel and seatless French toilets were all that was allowed. Luckily we had plenty of cashew clusters and chocolate on board to tide us over until we were able to stagger into the Ferry Bistro with jelly legs.  The clouds closed in again as we passed through Basel, there was a huge queue of cars being checked by a legion of border security cops on the other side of the motorway as we drove out of the country. The rain started an hour before reaching the coast but cleared as we arrived in Calais. How wonderful it was to be able to sail into Dover with the sun shining on those white cliffs. M reversed the little removable transfer to prompt the use of the correct side of the road and we headed back to Cambridge - 13 hrs - door to door.

Nearly there.