Five enjoyable days – Alps, Bern, Lausanne, Zürich

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    Adelaidean
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    16 April 2017 at 11:39:09 #861527

    Wonderful photo of the Lauterbrunnen valley.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Removed user
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    16 April 2017 at 12:55:25 #861528

    Thanks for the pictures. I am pleasantly surprised how leafed out it is in many of your pictures already. I will be jumping ahead in seasons as we still have a couple weeks to go before leaves pop out here in central NY. That is a real positive.

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    16 April 2017 at 13:12:35 #861529

    Kathie – I was surprised as well. Despite being much further north than the New York City area where I live, the trees were in full bloom in Chur, Bern and Zürich.

    Arno
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    15471 posts
    16 April 2017 at 17:46:23 #861530

    Areas on the same latitude in Europe are generally warmer because of the Atlantic Gulf Stream. If it would stop or slow down (a theoretical possibility because of global warming), the climate would be slightly cooler here. On top of this natural phenomenon, there’s unnatural global warming causing spring to start sooner than it used to. On average, of course.

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    16 April 2017 at 19:10:43 #861531

    Perhaps I don’t need to take as many cool weather clothes as I was thinking, although it is still likely to be chilly in the Alps, isn’t it?

    Arno
    Moderator
    15471 posts
    17 April 2017 at 8:23:24 #861532

    Hi Kathie,

    It can be chilly all year round depending on the weather of the day and location (particularly altitude). You’ll be fine if you can dress in thinner layers as explained on myswissalps.com/ weather. Last year around this time there was snow well below 1000 meters. Average statistics don’t mean much on such days 🙂

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    17 April 2017 at 8:46:55 #861533

    And now there final installment in my trip report.

    We woke up relatively early on Wednesday and spent some time strolling around Bern. This is an exceptionally beautiful time of the year and the flowers were in full bloom. We then checked out of the hotel and made our way to the station and caught a non-stop Intercity train to Zürich. We deposited our bags at the Hotel Montana Zürich where I had made reservations. I had picked this hotel solely based on the closeness to the station as we had to leave very early in the morning on Thursday to catch our flight. The choice of this hotel also turned out to be a bit of a mistake as I will explain later.

    We then took a tram to the FIFA museum to pick up some souvenirs for some family members who are football fans. For lunch we went to the restaurant of Hotel Adler which serves Swiss specialities – recommended by the desk clerk at Hotel Montana. We had Raclette and really enjoyed it – I can recommend this restaurant highly – both the food and service were excellent.

    With nothing else planned for the afternoon, we caught a tram and went to the Chinese gardens on the shore of the Zürichsee. The whole area along the lake shore is beautiful and we had an enjoyable afternoon eating ice cream and relaxing in the sun. Finally, we went to the national museum near the station and spent a couple of hours looking at the exhibits about Swiss history.

    We had a minor adventure trying to mail back the Travelers WiFi device. When opening the box at arrival, I managed to damage the box a little so I needed some sticky tape to close the box for shipping. The hotel did not have any tape so we had to roam around a bit to find a store that sold this! Finally we went to the main post office and were able to buy the tape and finally post it 🙂

    The location of Hotel Montana is excellent but it is also very noisy. Many young backpackers seemed to congregate near this hotel late into the night and were very rowdy, making a lot of noise so it was hard to sleep. Also, considering the price, we got a very small room with very dated fixtures in the bathroom. Overall, not recommended, even though the staff were friendly.

    We left the hotel the next morning at 6am and made our way back to the Airport on a train with no problem. For the return journey, I was unable to get a non-stop at a reasonable price so I was forced to return via Frankfurt on Lufthansa. Be warned that the check-in lines for Lufthansa and Swiss can be quite long but since we had come early, we did not have a problem.

    It was a great trip overall and we were glad that we came to Switzerland. Definitely expensive but very good value for the money!

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    17 April 2017 at 22:35:46 #861534

    Thanks for the final instalment of your trip report!

    Unfortunately, centrally located hotels can often have noise problems! Even in the small town of Meiringen, I could hear revellers one night until 5am! In this case, I think they were locals!

    Alpenrose

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    26 April 2017 at 8:34:08 #861535

    A small postscript. I bought an N-scale model of the Glacier Express that we rode on from Chur to Brig earlier this month . I now have it running on my model train layout – see attached photos 🙂

    One caveat that will annoy purists is that the scale is actually 1:150 rather than 1:160 since the Glacier Express runs on meter gauge – but it doesn’t bother me!

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    26 April 2017 at 8:58:06 #861536

    2sk21, Lovely! If you build a model of the viaduct, and the train curving over it, that would be really so complete!

    Did you visit the Transport Museum in Lucerne?

    Suresh

    udayaditya
    Participant
    55 posts
    29 April 2017 at 13:43:48 #861537

    Hello 2sk21

    Its a really wonderful trip report.

    I want to ask you to give me a rough idea how much the take away picnic lunches from Migros will cost me

    Udayaditya

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    30 April 2017 at 8:41:21 #861538

    @SureshSrini – sadly we had no time to visit Luzern on this trip. I definitely want to come back again!

    @udayaditya As it happens, I was tidying up my receipts from the trip and I saw that a typical sandwich in the Micros take away is about 7 Francs. They also have other things like pizza and salad.

    udayaditya
    Participant
    55 posts
    30 April 2017 at 16:06:27 #861539

    Thank you for your efforts…..Are full sized pizzas within 20 chf??

    Udayaditya

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    30 April 2017 at 20:50:05 #861540

    @udayaditya – they mostly seem to see pizza by the size in the micros take away although I am sure that they would be happy to sell you a full pizza. I think each slice was about 3 Francs but I have no idea how much a full pizza would cost.

    AlanPrice
    Participant
    279 posts
    30 April 2017 at 22:55:36 #861541

    Hi,

    Fantastic report! Makes me wish I was going this year. On a technical note, what sort of camera did you uae? Your photos are excellent.

    Alan

    Removed user
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    1 May 2017 at 12:13:24 #861542

    @AlanPrice Glad you liked the photos. All of the photos in the Flickr album were taken with my new iPhone 7 plus. The camera quality in phones has improved to such a degree nowadays that I have given up carrying my point-and-shoot camera.

    rockoyster
    Participant
    8889 posts
    4 May 2017 at 22:22:53 #861543

    Hello 2sk21,

    My wife and I will be retracing some of your steps in a couple of weeks. We both enjoyed reading your reports immensely. Thanks heaps for taking the time to provide such interesting details.

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    5 May 2017 at 8:25:56 #861544

    Glad you enjoyed my report and hope you have an enjoyable trip!

    rockoyster
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    8889 posts
    6 May 2017 at 22:00:09 #861545

    One question if I may 2sk21. I notice from your photos of the GEX Panorama coaches that there are no overhead luggage racks. Figures, but is there room to store carry on type bags (e.g. small backpack) under or between seats? Will I be able to keep backpack close to hand rather than in some centralised luggage store?

    Removed user
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    7 May 2017 at 0:01:03 #861546

    Rockoyster: Luggage space may be a bit of a problem on the Glacier Express – especially if the train is full. Thankfully, my carriage was only about 60% full but even so the luggage area was full of suitcases.

    As you noticed, there are no roof level racks for smaller bags since that would interfere with the view. There is some space on the floor between the seats for the smaller bags. For larger bags, there is space at one end of each carriage. If you are likely to have a lot of luggage, you can consider sending the luggage unaccompanied on SBB to your destination . Or you might consider upgrading to first class on the Glacier Express. With fewer people in each carriage, there is likely to be more luggage room.

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