Hammayya…..at last weekend has come…This week seemed to be veryyyy looooooong…Loads of household chores to catch up….’ll leave them to my other half 😉
Time for my Swiss travelogue update…Well, many of my friends asked me for our itinerary so that they can plan their tours…Thanks to Google…I knew nothing abt Swiss, places to see, where to stay and how to travel….Suman left everything onto me..He just packed his bag just before the day of our journey…Because it was me who initiated the trip, I had to take care of all our journey…..So here’s our holiday plan..
We had to travel all the way from South Wales to London which was a kind of tiring journey on the bus (5hrs). We then flew from London Gatwick to Geneva..It’s a one and half hr onboard journey…Since we had a UK residence permit we did not require any visa to visit Swiss. Swiss is not a part of EU and hence they’ve got separate rules and currency (Franks) as well. 1 GBP was equal to 2.37 CHF (Swiss Franks)…
We reached Geneva by 10PM on Saturday night. Geneva Palexpo (train station) is just beside the airport. We purchased the train tickets to Geneva Central train station (Cornavin). Ticket cost was 3 CHF. We took the train and reached Cornavin station in 4 minutes ….Our hotel was just abt 3min walk fron Cornavin. Rested in the hotel and the next day (Sunday) morning we had our breakfast (breakfast is normally included in the Hotel booking) and reached Cornavin. Swiss travel system is every efficient, flexible and convenient. We purchased a Swiss Flexi Pass for 6 days which allowed us for an unlimited travel across the country for all the 6 days…Rail/Bus/Boat/Tram are included in this Pass and a 50% discount on mountain railways is also available in conjuction with this pass.
We then took a local tram (No 15) to the United Nations. We spent an hr there and then returned back to Cornavin. From Cornavin Lake Geneva is just 10 min by walk. Sign posts will lead us to Lake Geneva which has Jet d’eau one of the largest fountains in the world. Five-hundred litres (132 gallons) of water per second are jetted to an altitude of 140 metres (459 feet) by two groups of pumps, operating on 2,400-V electricity with a total power of 1,000 kW. The water leaves the nozzle at a speed of 200 km/h (124 mph). When it is in operation, at any given moment there are about 7,000 litres (1849 gallons) of water in the air. There’s also a Flower clock near the lake. We then took a cruise (incl in Swiss Pass) across the Lake and spent a couple of hrs on the cruise…On the otherside of the shores we can see France…. We had our lunch in the Cruise restaurant..By noon we got back to our room and vacated. And then from Cornavin we took the InterRegio Express and reached Montreux in about 1 hr. From Montreux we took the Golden Pass Panaromic Train to Interlaken. We had to change train at Zweisimmen. This route is one of the most famous scenic routes in the world. We see Alps on one side and deep valleys and lakes on the other side from the train.
We reached Interlaken by 5.30PM. Our hotel in Interlaken was 4km from the Interlaken OST station. So we took the local city bus and reached our hotel by 6PM. The hotel was run by a local Swiss family and had very nice views across Lake Breinz and the Glacier mountains. We relaxed and had our dinner…So that was our first day in Swiss.
On Day 2 (Monday) we reached the Interlaken OST train station by 9AM and boarded the train to Grindelwald. From Grindelwald we need to purchase our ticket to Jungfraujoch (Highest rail station in Europe built on Glaciers). We booked our return tickets via Wengen and Launterbrunnen (another scenic route). So from Grindelwald we took the mountain rail and reached a station called Kleine-Scheidegg. From there we took the Jungfraujoch train which took us to the Top of Europe station through a tunnel. We reached Jungfraujoch by Noon…It’s quite a long journey but worth a lot. On Jungfraujoch we spent around 4hrs in the Ice Palace, Ice Plateau, Adventure Sports area. There’s also a Bollywood restaurant on top where we had our lunch buffet (28CHF..hmm expensive)…On our way back we traveled via Wengen and Lauterbrunnen stations where we came across many gorgeous Water Falls. Got back to the Hotel at about 8PM. It was bright enough until 9PM ‘coz of summer…End of Day 2
Day 3 (Tuesday) – The starting point for the cruise across Lake Breinz was just beside the Train Station. So just as the day before, we reached the train station by 9AM…headed towards the cruise and boarded the cruise for a trip across Lake Breinz. This cruise took us to the other end of the Lake and then a round trip back to Interlaken station. I’ve no words to explain the beauty of this lake…The most clean, pure and refreshing waters ‘ve ever seen…The total cruise trip was for abt 3.5hrs….So by 1PM we got back to Interlaken station. Had our lunch in a Chinese restaurant close to the station. We then took the train to Bern which was like 1hr journey from Interlaken. We traveled to Bern along the shores of Lake Thun (Interlaken is situated in between Lake Thun and Lake Breinz..hence the name Interlaken). Bern is the capital city of Swiss and it’s totally a Metro…Very old, tall, royal buildings all thru the city…the train station itself was 3 storeyed with platforms on each floor. We spent wandering through the Bern City till evening and returned back to Interlaken by 7PM…End of Day 3
Day 4 (Wednesday) – We visited Lake Luzern and Mt. Titlis this day…Luzern is 2hrs by train (another Panoramic route across Brunigg Pass) from Interlaken. We reached Luzern by 11AM. We then boarded the cruise on Lake Luzern…We’ll have a very pleasant view of the entire Luzern City from the cruise…had our lunch in the cruise. We got off the cruise at a station called Stanstead. From this place we took train to Engelberg which is at the foot of Mt.Titlis (Queen of Moutains). From Engelberg we need to purchase the ticket for Mt.Titlis. We purchased the tickets at the Egelberg train station and took a bus to the Cable Car station…From this point we travel through the cable cars to Mt.Titlis. We had to change 3 cable cars (out of which the last one was the Titlis Rotair – Rotating cable car) to reach Mt.Titlis. Titlis is another Glacier with lots of activities like Skiing, Sledging etc. We spent around 3hrs on top and returned back to Engelberg – Hergiswil. At Hergiswil we took a return train to Interlaken…Weather was a bit cloudy today…we reached Interlaken by 8PM…End of day 4.
Day 5 (Thursday) – Zurich was our destination today. Zurich is 2hrs by train from Interlaken (via Bern). We reached Zurich by 11AM. Spent an hr in the city centre…very posh and advanced technology in every aspect…Heard that the people in Zurich have the second highest standard of living in the world. We then took a train to Schloss laufen (1hr frm Zurich towards Germany border). We can see the Rhine Falls from this station itself. Rhine Falls are the largest water falls in Europe across the German Swiss border. We took a short walk across the Rhine Falls and spent a couple of hrs. We then returned to Zurich by 5PM. Then took a train back to Luzern (1hr frm Zurich)…From the Luzern train station we took a short walk to the Chapel bridge (5min)…and then a local bus (Bus no 1) to the Lion Monument…We returned back to Interlaken by 10PM…I felt like it would have been better if we’d booked the hotel in Luzern for that night rather than traveling back to Interlaken….I was kind of greedy to save money….Staying in Interlaken for a consecutive 5 nights was cheaper than staying in two different places…
Day 6 (Friday) – This was our last day. We vacated our room in Interlaken and traveled to Geneva airport thru Bern…We stored our luggage in the airport locker rooms (we find these lockers everywhere (train stations and airports) in Swiss..it costs abt 5-7 CHF per day)..Our return flight to London was at 5PM. It was just 11AM by the time we reached Geneva airport. We had ample time to go around. So we took a train to Montreux (1hr). There was an event called Montreux Jazz Festival which is kind of famous there in Swiss going on at that time…So we spent a couple of hrs wandering thru the malls, did some shopping and returned back to Geneva by 3PM…We got back to London by 5.30PM local time and then we reached our home by 8PM on Friday (We took a train this time instead of the damn National Express Bus :x)…
So this was our Swiss Holiday….The best thing I liked abt swiss was the travel system. With just one Flexi Pass we were able to travel to wherever we wished to. We paid for the tickets (that too 50%) only to Jungfraujoch and Titlis….Fair enough.
And then the young children is Swiss…So sweet they are..very disciplined…I was lil surprised when I came to know that Swiss is one among those countries with highest gun ownership in the world. Military service is mandatory among the Male people there and hence they’ve the perk of carrying the guns home…even with these possessions the crime rate is very low…I couldn’t imagine the situation within the UK without the present restrictions on carrying weapons…
Food was very very expensive…especially water…3.50 CHF for 50ml of water..Baap re…I lived on diet coke for 6 days…We couldn’t make it possible to visit Lugano (Italian county in Switzerland)….
So this was our activity over the last week….For you Puli n Kals… tired for today……Sayonaaraaa….
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