Monthly Archives: June 2013

It’s actually a lot further than I thought to Geneva from Bern, so we didn’t arrive until about midday. The weather was sunny, with a slight breeze. The train trip via Lasuanne was nice, and we passed the medieval vineyards again –

Once in Geneva, we had a look around, found their main shopping street and quickly realised that most of the shops were out of our price range. Also, there are a lot of shops selling watches in Geneva, although most were a couple of hundred dollars each, so no new purchases were made.

A short stroll away was a nice park (with free WiFi) beside Lake Geneva, where we found this clock in their garden bed –

We visited St Peter’s church and were able to get a good view of Geneva from the top of their bell towers –

Although it’s a bit hard to see here, there were about 50 cranes I could see from here in the local Geneva region. Afterwards, we took a quick visit to the Palais Des Nations which is the HQ of the UN in Europe before heading back to the station for the train trip home, as we needed to pack our bags ready for our train to Italy tomorrow.

Cheerio, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir, Ciao, Chau

Well the day started out overcast and rainy, but we had hope that it would clear up. We left on the first of 4 trains to make our way to Jungfrajoch. Our first train took us to Interlaken (means “between lakes”) which is situated on a river/channel connecting two lakes. The train ride swept along a bank on one side of the 1^st lake, giving us great views over the lake and the mountains behind.
Our 2^nd train took us from Interlaken Ost, to Laturbrunnen, this time alongside a river flowing down through the valley. At Laturbrunnen, we changed onto a 3^rd train to start our ascent. This train was propelled upwards by the use of a gear track running in between the normal rail tracks, and the engine car dragged the train up the mountain (all powered electrically). This train offered us some spectacular views over the valley below before we disappeared into the mist and clouds.
Finally at Kleine Scheidegg, we changed onto our 4^th train for the journey to Jungfrajoch – Europe’s Highest Train Station. Most of this journey would take part in a long tunnel through the mountains, with two stops along the way, so we could peer out windows in the side of the mountain side.

Upon reaching the top, we were greeted by views of …. nothing, as it was cloudy and snowing (one might possibly say sometimes it was a small blizzard). It was -6*C outside with a wind speed of about 35km/h. For those of you who want to know what it looked like, here’s a 360 I took on the Plateau –

We walked around the rest of the visitors centre at the top (a large complex of tunnels under the mountatin, which includes 2 cafes/restaurants, a hotel and observatory), visited their ice palace which is actually carved into the glacier itself, found some great free Wifi access (work better than the Internet at the hotel in Bern, which we’re paying for. Why is it I can get a great internet connection 3500mtrs up a mountain, but my hotel in central Bern is not free and doesn’t work as well….) and had some yummy vegetable soup for lunch. After a couple hours, with no sign of the clouds clearing, we decided to call it a day and begin the long journey back down. We were disappointed that we didn’t get to see the spectacular views, but the train trip down (and up) was worth it, with some great photo opportunities, and we’ve both put this destination on our “to see” list for next time we come to Switzerland.

On our way back we were greeted with some sunshine, so took a couple more photos, before finally arriving back in Bern ready for some dinner and bed. Looking forward to visiting Geneva tomorrow, as it’s suppose to be sunny weather (hopefully)

Cheerio, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir, Ciao, Chau

We took a lovely 1 hr train trip through the Swiss countryside today to Zurich. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too good, but we were greeted by a brief sunny spell when we arrived in Zurich so took the opportunity to do a little bit of sightseeing. We took a tram (Swiss City Public transport is free for us to use with our Swiss Eurail Pass) down towards the lakeside and saw the largest church clock face in Europe. A short stroll away were the twin towers of Grossmünster Church, which offered us this view over Zurich from the top –

We walked down one of Zurich’s shopping streets (looks a bit like the one pictured below) –

and found ourselves a chocolate shop. After a brief stop and a small purchase, we continued onwards, only to find another chocolate shop. After another brief pause and some more purchases, we returned to the main train station (for free WiFi access) to plan our route to the final chocolate shop (All good things come in 3s, Save the best for last & 3^rd times the charm) – Lindt Factory Shop.

It took about 15 mins by tram and bus to get to the Lindt Factory, but we were greeted by a smell of chocolate in the air and once inside the store, had a huge range of chocolate to choose from –

Outside the Lindt Factory Shop in Zurich (note the bag full of chocolate on my shoulder)

Inside the Lindt Shop…

Anyone for a 2.5kg bag of Lindt??

Suffice to say, we spent a significant amount of time here and I ended up purchasing about $100 AUD worth of chocolate (it weighs about 2.2kgs – luckily we’re posting another package home from Switzerland 🙂 ).

I also saw a really interesting watch design here in Zurich called “Part Time”. I would have bought one, but the cheapest started out at 500CHF (about $550AUD). Instead, here’s the link to their website instead, so you can have a look for yourself – PartTime

Then it was time for the trip back to Bern, through the Swiss countryside again. Upon the way back, I spotted this small castle on a hill above a little village –

We’re going to Jungfraujoch tomorrow as the weather forecast says it’s suppose to be semi-sunny and only -1*C so not too cold 🙂

Cheerio, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir, Ciao, Chau