Trip to Switzerland: 6-13th May 2010: Part1

 

If you are an Indian and watch Bollywood, you surely would have dreamt of going to Switzerland after watching one of those YashRaj movies… We too were eagerly waiting for summers, to cross off the item at the top of our “must visit in lifetime” list. And we didn’t have to wait for long.. While it was still pretty cold in Stockholm, weather.com told us that May is a good time to visit Switzerland. Tickets were booked for 6th of May by SAS from Stockholm to Zurich.

We were to reach Zurich pretty late at night (around 11pm), so we booked an Airport hotel (Holiday Inn Express Zürich Airport). Upon arrival, the hotel shuttle was waiting outside the airport, and within next 15 minutes, we were inside our hotel room. The hotel was very decent and we were ruing the fact that we have to check out early morning next day without enjoying the facilities provided.

The first step: Swiss Pass

Early next morning, after breakfast, we took the hotel shuttle back to airport, knowing that the airport has a connected train station. We had done some extensive research on Swiss train network we knew that the first thing we had to do was to get a “Train Pass”. We opted for a 8 day Swiss Pass (though our stay was for 6 days only, but the other option was for 4 days), which along with allowing free train travel on all land trains, provided discounts on mountain trains and free or discounted entry to various museums throughout Switzerland. The pass cost us around 320CHF per person (it is quite costly!!). There were various other passes available like “Regional-Pass Bernese Oberland" etc, but we found the Swiss pass to be most hassle free. Another important thing that we had discovered was that the site www.sbb.ch is excellent for trip planning. They had an amazing Nokia phone application as well which allowed saving train timetables offline. Apart from that, all train station’s ticket counter personnels were generally very helpful.

The Adventure begins : Off to Lucerne by Golden Pass Line, May 7 2010

Pics: Stunning views from the Golden Pass Line route

Visiting Switzerland is unique when it comes to “Top things to do”. While for all the other places I have visited, you have a list of  cities/monuments/museums/parks etc to visit, Switzerland has a list of “Train journeys to take” as one of its top attractions. The trains have what they call as “Scenic Routes” which give you breathtaking stunning views of the natural beauty that Swiss is famous for. Our travel from Zurich to Lucerne was on one such route, the Golden Pass Line. For the complete two hours of the journey, our eyes were glued to the windows and mouths open in awe!. The only other time I remember admiring nature so much was when I had visited Srinigar (Kashmir) in India… Pure bliss is how I would describe the feeling.

Excursion to Mount Pilatus with Frakmuntegg

    
Pics: Top row: Lake Lucerne boat trip and cogwheel rail, Bottom row: Views from Pilatus

The first thing we did on reaching Lucerne was to get to the tourist information center on the railway station, which was very helpful. After getting maps and other useful information, we rushed towards our hotel (Etap Hotel Lucerne), checked in, and left almost immediately. Our plan for the day was an excursion to Mount Pilatus. We had to decide between Pilatus and TItlis, and we chose Pilatus just for the fact that Titlis had some snow and we were sick and tired of all the snow in Stockholm, otherwise, Titlis is preferred by travelers generally. The complete journey was not covered by Swiss pass, and we had to pay around 32CHF extra per person for the trip. We got all the bookings done at the tourist information center itself.
We took the boat from Schiff Quay, right opposite the Lucerne railway station to reach Alpnachstaad. From there, we boarded the steepest cogwheel railway in the world to take us to the top. The boat trip on Lake Lucerne, was quite romantic with us occupying front seats on deck outside, and the cogwheel ride was quite an experience. At the top of Pilatus, initially we were disappointed as the weather was a bit cloudy, so the view was blocked.. But, thankfully it soon cleared out and we got some nice view of the complete valley…. On our way back, we chose the second route which is cable car down to Kriens and then bus back to Lucerne.. (again, t he tourist information guys had explained everything).

  
Pics: Toboggan run at Frakmuntegg

On the way down with the cable car, we took some time to explore the activities offered halfway at Frakmuntegg.. We tried the Frakigaudi Rodelbahn, Switzerland’s longest summer toboggan run. In simplified terms, it is riding down a hill in a small kind of cart which slides on a hemispherical metal tube.. (can’t explain it better.. see pics). It was quite some fun…

Excursion to Mount Rigi: The queen of mountains.. May 8 2010

Pics: On top of Mount Rigi

We were pretty tired on returning from Pilatus, so just went back to hotel for a nice long sleep. The next morning, we were at the tourist information center again, this time planning visit to Mount Rigi..which is known as the queen of mountains. We went to Arth-Goldau by train from Lucerne, and then took the Cogwheel rail up to the top. (Cogwheel station is outside of main train station, on the back side). The good thing was that just a fortnight ago, the cogwheel ride had been included in swiss pass.. so the complete trip was free for us.. :) .. The top of Rigi offered even better view than Pilatus (but, if you have time for only one, do Pilatus or Titlis, just for the fact that they are must do items on every travel itinerary.. :) )

Lucerne town and the Swiss Transport museum

Pics: Top row: Swiss transport museum, Bottom row: Chapel bridge, Old town church and Lion monument

On returning from Rigi, we headed towards the very famous, Swiss transport museum taking a train to Luzern Verkehrshaus station. It showcases transport mediums ranging from hundreds of years ago to the most modern ones. The most enjoyable activity there was the Airplane simulator experience..

We spend the evening walking around the Lucerne city seeing sights like Chapel bridge crossing the Reuss river, a wooden bridge with lots of paintings inside, beautiful Lion Monument or the Dying lion of Lucerne, old town with the church…. We ended the day with a nice dinner at an indian restaurant close to Dying Lion monument.

That brought an end to our well spent day, and also time to move on from Lucerne… Next morning we headed towards Interlaken.. but that and much more in the next blog.. :)

Trip to Paris, The City of Light : 4 - 6th February 2010

 

Three countries, four cites and unlimited fun… last two months had been a dream come true… and the dream run was to continue with us heading to the City of Light, Paris. Weather in Stockholm was still well below freezing point, but fortunately Paris’ forecast was much better. This time we were a smaller group with Akhil, Shipra, Eva and of-course myself. :)

We took the 6:00 PM Ryan Air flight from Stockholm Skavsta airport on Friday, 4th February, and reached Paris Beauvais airport at around 8:15PM. The only good thing with Ryan Air, apart from low fares, is its punctuality. Beauvais is around 80 Kms away from the city and it took us almost 1.5 hours to reach Porte Maillot in Paris. Underground metro station is nearby and few cities in the world would have a better network of metros.

The Hotel

We reached our pre booked “Hotel Est” at around 11:15Pm. The hotel was decent, just that, we got tricked into thinking that they provide free breakfast, but they charged 7Eur pp/day instead. Another problem was that we got ground floor rooms facing the road, with traffic noise a little irritating at times.

The Louvre Museum

    

 
Top Row: Some sculptures at Louvre
Bottom row: The Mona Lisa, Beautifully painted roofs, Huge wall size paintings

The next morning, we left the hotel after breakfast and our first destination was the “Louvre Museum”, one of the world’s largest and most visited art museum. Even if you have no eye for art, just like me, a trip to Paris is definitely incomplete without visiting Louvre. The museum is so huge that just passing through all the sections requires a couple of hours. First thing that we did was to grab a map and an audio guide.
The first section (if you enter from the same gate as we did.. :) ) consists of various sculptures while the later ones have more of paintings. The Mona Lisa painting, by Leonardo da Vinci definitely is the star attraction, but to a non art connoisseur like me, there were hundreds of other paintings which looked better. And the pyramid outside the Louvre, made famous by the novel “Da Vinci Code”, looks like an artwork in itself.

The Eiffel Tower

 

Top Row: Trying to capture the full Eiffel somehow
Bottom Row: Views from the top of Eiffel

After spending a good part of our day at Louvre, we headed towards the Eiffel tower, which definitely needs no introduction. Tower is a 10 minutes walk away from the metro station, and throughout the walk, vendors keep trying to sell Eiffel Souvenirs to you. As we were approaching the tall and majestic global icon, a strange sense of excitement  had started to creep in.. We were actually going to climb the Eiffel.

The tower has four entry points, one at each of its four pillars. But at the time, two of them were closed for renovation (one of the perils of going in off-season). Out of the rest two, one was open for stairs, while other for lift. While we wanted to take stairs, the queue there was much bigger as compared to the lift one, so we bought tickets to that. After almost an hour of waiting, we finally got inside the lift and started our ascent…

The view from the top was awesome. The wind was blowing pretty hard and am not sure whether it was the cold, or the excitement, but we had goose bumps. Thank God for the digital cameras, we clicked dozens of photographs from every angle possible (wish i had my SLR then.. :( ). Still only half way through, but the trip was already a success.

Luxembourg Garden

Luxembourg Garden views

Deciding to return back to Eiffel after dark, we went to see the famous Luxembourg gardens in the meanwhile. The gardens came out to be better than what we had imagined. Beautifully landscaped, with variety of flora and decorated with numerous sculptures, the garden was a treat to watch. But the nightlight of our trip was what happened next. A group of ladies with one of them funnily dressed came up to us. They asked me and Akhil to write a message for that girl on a piece of lady’s undergarment. They also “made us” give a peck on that lady’s cheeks… ;).. Our wives would never understand that we were just trying to help the poor soul.. ;).. Actually the girl was to get married soon and her friends had thrown her a pre-wedding challenge to do this to 20 unknown foreigner guys.. as part of their hen party.:) ..

Eiffel at night

Left to right: Eiffel at night, The gang:[Eva, Myself, Shipra, Akhil and Ashish], Eiffel with special lighting at 8:00PM

While a view from the top of Eiffel during daytime is amazing, the Eiffel itself looks stunning after dark. And at the stroke of each hour, it is lit up by special sparkling lighting for a couple of minutes. So we returned to the tower at around 7:15 in the evening and also met one of my college time friends, Ashish Manchanda, who was doing his MBA from Paris during the time. He took us to an elevated place across the road in front of Eiffel which game breathtaking views of the tower. From there we enjoyed the 8:00PM special lighting, and also clicked lot more photographs.

Champ Elysees and Arc De Triomphe

Left to right: Arc De Triomphe, Champ Elysees view1, Champ Elysees view2

Next we moved on to one of world’s most famous streets, The Champ Elysees. I hate going to such streets as they make me feel a lot poorer than what I am… I probably couldn’t have afforded a single item from any of the shops there… But the street was a visual extravaganza with showrooms of all the names of world fashion industry, and parking lots filled with some of the costliest luxury cars.. One end of the street was the famous monument Arc De Trimomphe, quite similar to Arc de Triomf in Barcelona and Gateway of India in Mumbai.

Stroll along the River Seine

 
Left to right: On the banks of Seine with Eiffel in background, One of the sculptures on the bank, Louvre pyramid at night

It was pretty late in the night, but we didn’t feel like going to our hotel. So we went for a stroll along the River Seine. The river shoreline is beautifully decorated with pruned trees and various sculptures. We started our walk near the Concorde metro station and continued till Louvre from where we took the metro back to our hotel. The dinner that night was at an Indian restaurant just outside our hotel which was run by a Pakistani and served delicious food.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Left to right: Notre Dame exterior, Notre Dame interior, View from the top of Notre Dame

First on our agenda for the next day was the Notre Dame Cathedral, widely considered as one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in France and in Europe. The church interior was almost similar to the other famous churches we had seen (one in almost each European city), but the exterior was definitely superior. Also, we bought tickets to go to the top of the tower, which were reached by climbing 386 stairs through a narrow pathway. But it provided an absolutely beautiful view of the River Seine and the whole city and was worth the effort (and money).

Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur church

 
Left to right: Cog wheel trolley, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre market

The final spot on our must visit list was the Montmartre hill. Its a cozy little area on top of a small hill with nice and trendy streets, lots of bakeries, bistros and flower shops. I found Montmartre to be one of the most lively places in Paris. The Sacre Coeur church on the top of the hill is quite beautiful and so is the small cog wheel trolley experience that takes you up there. The church is located on the highest point of the city and gives a nice view of whole Montmartre.

All the things we had on our planned itinerary had been checked… We still had almost 3 hours before our airport bus were to leave, and we were pretty tired as well, So we spent the next couple of hours at a Starbucks enjoying the coffee, cookies, cakes and some conversation…. I don’t remember exactly, but we must have been praising ourselves for such a smooth, “incident less” trip where everything went as planned.. :)

Finally we took the 8:30 Ryan Air flight back from Paris Beauvais to Stockholm and reached well past midnight. The office was waiting for the next morning :(