Calling it ‘Heaven on Earth’ is not an overstatement. My friend and I planned to visit this heaven over a weekend and time was bent upon being our enemy. Indeed, it turned out being a wonderfully challenging trip :-)
Switzerland is a small country with two major cities, Geneva and Zurich, in different corners. There are quite a few scenic train routes spanning across the country. We decided on the route between Geneva to Zurich.
Trains are a necessity even though road transport and water transport are very well developed. With a Swiss Pass one can travel by any means (train/ tram/ bus/ boat) without having to bother about purchasing tickets. Getting the passes before you land in Switzerland would be helpful because the train-ticket counter at the Geneva airport doesn’t open until 07:00.
Train station at Geneva airport is just one floor below the airport! (same with Zurich). BEWARE.. there are no waiting rooms at the airport or the train station. We had assumed that we would spend the time between 01:00 and 05:30 in a waiting room before we could catch the first train.., but ended up doing window shopping (‘cos the shops were all closed) at the airport. :-)
We hadn’t planned to roam around Geneva as there isn’t much for travellers. At 04:30 when we learned that we can’t get train tickets before 07:00, we decided to take a short peek into the city. The Lake Geneva is magnificent and HUGE. Various Banks on the shore with snow-capped Alps in the background earned a WOW. However, the fountain Jet d’eau – one of the main attractions of Geneva was sitting there absolutely lifeless. :-( But the view of the lake & the mountains was worth our effort.
Next stop was Montreux. Geneva to Montreux train is all along Lake Geneva (remember, it’s a HUGE lake) and is very beautiful. We reached there one hour late, courtesy – missing a train at Geneva by seconds. Couldn’t visit the Montreux Palace as planned, but were glad to have arrived just in time to catch Golden Pass Panoramic Express train from Montreux.
The first part of this train journey climbs a mountain. Second part takes you between mountains.. (mountains on both sides).. and the last part is all along Lake Thunersee. All this is must see. (Journey from Montreux to Interlaken)
Interlaken is the most convenient place to stay if you intend to visit Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe). It was just 14:00 or so.., so instead of checking in at the hotel.. we headed South towards Brig. This is also a scenic route and needless to say - very beautiful. The journey through a very long tunnel (10 miles or so) was thrilling.
We returned to Interlaken at about 18:00 or so. We then headed to Lucerne. Since it was already dark outside, we didn’t enjoy this journey as much as we should’ve. Saw a couple of tourist attractions in Lucerne and returned to Interlaken at around 22:00.
Backpacker’s Villa, the hostel where we stayed overnight, is a clean and pleasant place with an automated checkin option. (If we arrive after the reception has closed, we need to enter a PIN number in a machine, and it would give us the keys to our room!). In the morning, rather than waiting till 08:00 for their breakfast, we got on the 06:30 train to Jungfraujoch.
The ascent to Jungfraujoch is fabulous. Mountain trains are driven by a rack-and-pinion mechanism, and can climb very impressive slopes. We spent around 2 hours at the Top of Europe (Sphinx observatory building). My first romance with the snow.. lasted about 30 minutes. It was around 12 degrees celsius below zero. The return journey was halfway through the train and the rest in bus. The orangish colours of early autumn looked really fabulous. We reached Interlaken around 14:00.
Journey from Interlaken to Bern was in a double-decker Inter-City train. For a capital, Bern is a surprisingly small city. We got a city map from a tourist information centre in the station and were able to see 90% of the tourist attractions in less than 2 hours. Actually, there isn’t much to see. Every 500 yards or so they have a small fountain in the middle of the road. These fountains with fancy names are counted as Tourist Attractions. :-) There are totally 26 (maybe slightly more) tourist attractions in Bern :-D
We were fast approaching the end of our journey. We reached our final Swiss destination, Zurich, at around 19:00. Unfortunately for us, all shops are closed on Sundays and we couldn’t do any shopping. Just roamed around the city in trams for about an hour or so. Picked up some Swiss chocolates from the airport shops before we boarded our return flight.
Ahem ahem.. wake up. The review is over. :-)
Well, this isn’t the best way to see Switzerland. One would need atleast 5 days to do any kind of justice to the place. We missed out Mount Pilatus and Mount Titilis - two must see destinations. I guess, with good planning, one can see all that we saw and also these 2 mountains in about 3 days.
Do visit this picturesque country. I’m sure you will have a great time.
-S