 | 2005 Switzerland Trip |
New York CitySunday, October 23Left Long beach for JFK. Took the subway to Shannon's, then got dinner at an Italian place nearby. I got a big blister on my heel from a combination of new-ish shoes and bad socks. Monday, October 24
Tuesday, October 25
Chamonix, Mont BlancWednesday, October 26The overnight flight wasn't too bad, I tried to sleep after watching the movie. Continental international has an *awful* in-flight entertainment system. The audio kept skipping for the first 30 minutes, and figuring out how to get it out of French mode was difficult. We flew in over London and Paris (both overcast) but once we got to the Alps at sunrise they rose above the clouds and offered an excellent panorama. Those mountains don't look all that tall from 38,000 feet! When we got into Geneva, the first thing we did was buy train tickets out to Chamonix. That was the only destination that wasn't part of a loop around the country so I wanted to get it out of the way early. Aaron didn't need to be in Lausanne until the next day anyway. The Geneva train station is directly underneath the airport terminal, and from any rail office in Switzerland you can book any train trip anywhere in the region. The first leg of the trip ran along the length of Lake Geneva out to Martigny where we transferred to a "cog train". The rails here are so steep that a special toothed cog is used to pull the train up the mountain rather than relying on the wheels like a normal train. Another transfer at the Switzerland/France border and we rolled into Chamonix. We got a quick lunch in the town there, then made the walk to the cable car Aiguille de Midi which takes you 9,200 feet up to a huge lodge which overlooks the 15,700 foot Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe. The lodge is at 12,600 feet so you have quite a view. There were a lot of hikers out and from the highest overlook you could see the trails they left up the mountains, they were tiny specs off in the distance. One neat area was a tunnel through the glacial ice, pretty cool to be under that much ice! That night we took the train back to Lausanne where we had a reservation at a hotel already. Having a reservation for your first night is highly recommended.
LausanneThursday, October 27We slept in until about noon, the trip from the US, the time change, and the trip to Chamonix all took a lot out of us. After breakfast we went to the Olympic Museum which was pretty good. Lausanne is also the home of the International Olympic Committee and is where the Modern Games got started, though they've never been held there. One of the really cool sculptures they had in the garden was an arched pipe in the ground. It's how far the world record long jump is. You don't really get how far it is until you've seen it! After that we walked to the old town, the city is built on a very steep hill which makes for some very interesting building and street design. At the main square is a huge bridge connecting the street on one side to the street on the other. Under construction was an extension of the metro line. Many great old churches are there which are open to the public. Friday, October 28
Zermatt, MatterhornSaturday, October 29The train trip from Lausanne to Zermatt wasn't too long. Along the way we passed many old houses, most of which used stone for their roofs. We arrived in Zermatt at about noon and headed for the cable car. The views of the Matterhorn from the town are simply amazing and we were there on a completely clear day. The cable car takes you up to Klein Matterhorn which takes you up to 12,736ft - the highest point in Europe that you can reach by cable car! Back in Zermatt we started looking for a hotel room. Even though the town has thousands of hotel rooms, *many* places were closed since it was between seasons, so we had a heck of a time finding a place to stay. Eventually we ended up at a hostel which was closed, but which had an apartment available! So we had an entire apartment in a resort town for only $150US for the night.
VeniceSunday, October 30We took the 8am train out of Zermatt headed for Venice with a stop in Milan. When we crossed into Italy the customs agents just walked through the cars with a drug dog stopping people who look suspicious. They didn't even ask for our passports. At Milan we didn't have to get off the train, but we did fill up with passengers. The Milan train station... Imagine a gigantic, dirty, old, decaying, communist construction. That's the Milan station. Mussolini built the station in 1931 to project an image of Italy's power. We arrived in Venice a few hours later to a crush of people. Thousands of people coming and going at the train station. Since it was about 5pm we were hoping that most of them were the day travelers leaving the city, Venice is supposed to be deserted in the Fall. We didn't have a reservation anywhere so we went to the "Last Minute Reservations" booth in the station where about 5 people were standing in line. An hour later we were next in line. It turns out that we just happened to choose to visit Venice on All Saints Day, the biggest fall holiday in Italy. "The entire city is sold out" says the clerk. The Canadian couple ahead of us had chosen a 30 minute bus ride outside the city. Instead of taking that, we ask her to look for single beds. First she found two single rooms at one hotel, which we said we'd take. She called the hotel and, of course, only one is available. So she searches some more and then finds a Queen bed in a hotel in Venice! Of course we take it, we were ready to pay any price for any accommodation, but it only ended up costing about $160! We walked out of the station elated, we looked at the Grand Canal and I have to say, it is an absolutely amazing experience. Every story you've heard about the beauty of Venice is true. Sure, it's a bit smelly, and you die if you touch the water, but the place is still an amazing experience. We hopped on the water taxi and took it through the city to our hotel, which ended up being easy to find. We checked in and finally got to set our bags down. By now it was about 7pm and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Being a holiday, and seeing how packed everything was on the way in, we decided that trying to get reservations at a nice restaurant was probably futile so we opted to eat Pizza from a little shop instead. Not the most romantic, but at least we got to eat. We did some shopping after that and wandered around the city. We took a gondola ride which started out very peaceful and quiet, meandering through the tiny canals and under the pedestrian bridges. Then it got exciting. Apparently the route we found took us out into the Grand Canal, the busiest waterway on the planet! The chop out there, plus THREE water taxi's trying to dock, and it being night time with a slight drizzle made for quite the ride. Fortunately we made it back to the dock without any trouble. When we were on the Grand Canal I was able to figure out where we were, so our next stop was Piazza san Marco (St Mark's Square). Even though it was night time, cloudy and rainy, the place is still amazing. Every building is a piece of art. The next day we wandered the city again, got lost a couple of times (all the streets meander, and some are less than three feet wide), and eventually made our way to the train station.
Venice->Milan->Tirano->ChurMonday, October 31We got out of Venice just fine and headed back to Milan. Unfortunately our train was slow and we didn't get to Milan until about 3 minutes before our connecting train to Tirano was scheduled to leave. The Milan station is huge and poorly organized and we couldn't find the connection. Eventually we found someone who told us that we're not supposed to check for the Tirano train, we need to look for the Lucatirano train. So we finally find the track, two minutes late. The next train doesn't leave for two hours, so we took the opportunity to tour Milan! We thought that Milan was a fashion capital but in our wanderings we didn't find much. Eventually our train came and we rode it up past Lake Como (socked in with clouds) and finally to Tirano. We were so beat that we took the hotel right next to the train station, which ended up being really nice and not too expensive. We saw a few trick-or-treaters out that night too :) Tuesday, November 1
ZurichWednesday, November 2Next stop was Zurich, we happened to come in on a Wednesday which is the Farmers Market day in the station. We toured the Swiss National Museum which had a lot of items from Switzerland's past inside a great castle museum. That night we stayed in a Cow themed hotel which was nice. The next morning we went back to a big church we had found and got to go up inside one of its towers which gave an excellent view of the city. 
LucerneThursday, November 3After that we headed to Lucerne. They have the Swiss Transport Museum which focuses on the trains, planes, boats, and everything else that has kept people moving about Switzerland throughout the years. An amazing exhibit they have is a big room with a satellite view of the country painted on the floor. We walked our route and could even see the Castle we saw at the beginning of the trip! Very cool exhibit. We left to an amazing sunset over the lake. That night we checked out the Lion, the old Water Tower Bridge, and back to our hotel room in an old prison. The next day we toured the old city walls which were absolutely amazing, then checked out the Mill Bridge, and the wooden dam which regulates the water level of the lake. 
Lucerne->GenevaFriday, November 4We took the GoldenPass scenic train all the way back to Geneva. For part of the trip the train was really crowded, strangely enough a lot of them were blind, like 30 of them. The all got off in a town along the way, must have been some field trip :) It was raining at Lake Geneva, so I'm really glad we got in on a time when it was clear. 
Flight homeSaturday, November 58am flight from Geneva to New York put us into Newark around noon. Our connecting flight wasn't till 5pm from JFK, so we took the opportunity to walk through the city and the park again. We kept hoping for the fall colors but we must still have been a few weeks early. Then we hit the subway right on schedule to make our flight, but at the first transfer we hear the conductor say "anyone going to JFK get off now, the E train isn't running today". Uh oh. An Indian fellow gets off the train as well, so I go talk to the info desk and get a map from them. We headed down to the orange line station to catch the N train, but a nice fellow next to us says "Oh, the N isn't running today." Uh oh! Fortunately he was quite helpful and gave us a route that would get us to the airport. We made sure the Indian fellow kept with us, we made every transfer, and made it to the check-in desk. We hustled through security and all the way to the gate, and sat down about 5 minutes before they closed the doors. Even I was sweating that one! The sunset was beautiful and I got some really good pictures of it. Even the Moon and Venus came out really well from 40,000 feet. Around Illinois I kept seeing flashes outside my window, at first I thought the plane was flashing its landing lights but then I realized that it was lightning. I've never seen lightning from the air before. As we approached the storm I could see the entire cloud light up, there were probably 10 lighting bolts *per second* going on continuously in that storm. I tried to get pictures, but only were timed right. We made it back to LA with no problems.
Epilogue |
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