Day 44: Glacier Express, St. Moritz (Oct 30)

Blog post coming soon! Highlights: train ride across Switzerland on the Glacier Express from Zermatt to St. Moritz. In the meantime, here are today's pictures.

Day 43: Zermatt (Oct 29)

Here are today's pictures.

• Checked out of my hotel and took the train to Zermatt. I planned to spend the day here so that I could leave the next morning from here on the Glacier Express. Train ride from Interlaken to Zermatt was about 2 hours.
• Checked into my hotel. I was one of two people staying at this location, they were closing for the season the next day (so basically closed all of November and part of December, until ski season). Dropped my stuff off at the hotel and made my way back to the center of town - the main street was somewhat crowded, but all of the side streets were empty because the businesses were closed for the season - and to the train station. Grabbed some lunch and sat outside looking at the mountains until it was time for my ride.
• The ride to the top of the Gornergrat was about an hour, try to get a seat on the right side so you can overlook the valley and the mountains, and get some great shots of the Matterhorn. I wandered around and stayed up at the top for a couple hours. It was cloudy at first but then cleared up some, but the atmospheric conditions were just right to produce some sundogs that looked amazing over the Matterhorn.
• After taking the train back down, I stopped at the local McDonalds to see what was on the menu (Cheeseburger Royal, McWrap, McChicken, and McRaclette) but stopped at another restaurant for an expensive burger and fries with a beer. 

Day 42: Interlaken, Schilthorn, Murren (Oct 28)

Here are today's pictures.

• From Interlaken, I took the BOB up to Lauterbrunnen, took a series of trains and cablecars up to the Schilthorn. 

Up to Schilthorn
- Interlaken West to Ost
- xfer to train to Zweilutschinen
- xfer to bus to Lauterbrunnen
- xfer to cablecar to Grutschalp
- xfer to cogwheel train to Murren
- xfer to cablecar to Schilthorn
Stopped at 2200m for 5 min 

• There’s a restaurant at the top there called Piz Gloria, it’s got a history as a filming scene for the James Bond movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. It was a little less than 2 hours for the whole trip from Interlaken, so it should be roughly the same from Grindlewald.
• Spent about 2-1/2 hrs at the top with lunch and taking pictures of the mountains from the restaurant, left at 3:30pm. 

Down
- cablecar from Schilthorn to Murren (wander 1 hr)
- xfer to cablecar to Gimmelwald (wander 30 min)
- xfer to cablecar to Stechelberg (wander 40 min)
- xfer to bus to Zweilutschinen
- xfer to train to Interlaken Ost

• Murren is a main stop on the way down. The station for the cablecar up to Schilthorn (the Schilthornbahn) and also to the small towns of Gimmelwald and Stechelberg is at one end of town, and the train down to Lauterbrunnen is at the other end. It’s a really nice walk through town, with fantastic views of mountains and valleys. On one of the shops I saw some stickers for Ron Jon’s (in Cocoa Beach), so I stuck another of the Endless BBQ stickers on the door (if you see it, please take a picture). I took the cablecar down to Gimmelwald to marvel at the small town, then down to Stechelberg (6pm) where I caught the train to Lauterbrunnen and back to Interlaken (7pm).
• I'm not a hiker, but there are tons of trails all around where you can make a day of it. I didn’t have that luxury (plus I’m lazy) so I took the cablecars and trains.

Day 41: Interlaken, Jungfrau (Oct 27)

Here are today's pictures.

• From Interlaken, I took the BOB up to Lauterbrunnen, then switched to another train to Wengwald and Kleine Scheidegg. From there, you can go up to the Jungfraugoch, which is the built-up area (mall/restaurant/viewing/skiing/etc.) at the top of the Jungfrau. See the map at the top for the path I took. On the way back down, I got off at Kleine Scheidegg and switched to another train going to Grindlewald. 
• My trip up had the following transfers (which I had to write down to keep straight):

​Going up
- RE train from Interlaken West to Ost
- xfer to Zweilutschinen on train 151
- xfer to Lautenbrunnen on bus
- xfer to Kleine Scheidegg on cogwheel train 351
- xfer to Jungfraujoch on cogwheel train 551  ​ 

Down
- Jungfraujoch to Kleine Scheidegg on cogwheel train 570
- xfer to Grindlewald on cogwheel train 470
- xfer to Interlaken Ost on train 270
- xfer to West

• All of the named stops on the train line from Kleine Scheidegg up to the Jungfraugoch are places where the train stops so you can get out and take a look out the windows carved in the walls.
• At the top, there’s a restaurant and gift shop (of course). There’s also a platform to go out and look at the glacier and pose with the Swiss flag atop the pole. It’s mighty impressive. And cold, too – I wore a light jacket over a sweater plus a scarf, gloves, and a hat.
• Photo tip: there’s so much snow that the reflected light backlights the subject if you’re taking a picture of someone, so set the flash on your camera to always go off.
• In the vestibule is a large picture of the mountains, saying it’s a UNESCO site. In the upper left corner is another one of my stickers (orange circle with a BBQ grill reading “#Endless BBQ”) – if you see it, please take a photo.
• Also at the top, on the inside they’ve got an “ice palace” (Eistpalast) to walk through. It stays below zero all year around.
• As the sun goes behind the mountains, they take the flag down and bring everyone in. It gets really cold out there with no sun.
• As mentioned earlier, on the way down, I changed trains at Kleine Scheidegg and went to Grindlewald. Due to the train schedule, I wouldn’t have had enough time to hang out there for dinner (it was 6pm) so I went back down to Interlaken and had dinner at the Grand Café (menu looked good). I had tomato soup with a dollop of ricotta, macaroni with meat sauce (National Dish of Interlaken) and applesauce, Alpenperle beer.
• Stopped by the casino at night, having been to Las Vegas I wasn't impressed and didn't stay long. The casino has 125 slots, 2 roulette tables, 2 video roulette, 2 blackjack tables, and 3 poker tables. Only one of the 7 tables was in use, one of those for roulette.

Day 40: Interlaken (Oct 26)

Here are today's pictures.

• Arrive in Interlachen, drop off my stuff. I took the train to Thun and wanted to take the boat across the lake, but the boat only runs on Sundays, so it was the train all the way in.
• I booked the hotel based on price and availability, I stayed at the Hotel Loetschberg. I got there on a Wednesday just before lunch, and left Saturday morning. The hotel closed for the season on Sunday, and there was only 1 other person in the hotel when I was there. Because it was the end of the season, a lot of summer-season activities were closed and the winter-season stuff hadn’t opened up yet, but the desk clerk found a paragliding company that was still open.
• October has great winds for paragliding. My pilot had a selfie stick (which I had never seen before) and took pictures and video of us in the air, and I was allowed to use my own camera as well. This company said they guarantee at least 10-15 minutes of air time, but with the good winds I was up for about 30 minutes. It took about 30 minutes to drive up to the top of the mountain, so the whole thing was done by about 3pm.
• I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and checking out the main “downtown” area and scouting a restaurant for dinner. Finally settled on the Banhof Hotel, just because they were the only place around that had cheese fondue for 1 (all other places had fondue for 2 or more).
• I checked out the casino after dark, but it wasn’t great. It was mostly a bunch of slot machines. Played 20 francs worth.

Switzerland details

I've fallen behind in my daily writing - as I write this now, I'm going on day 3 in Switzerland, so I still have 1 day of Hallstatt, 4 days of Munich, 2 days of Bavaria, and 2 days in Switzerland to get caught up - but I still have to plan for where I'm going more than write about where I've been.  So here's the plan for Switzerland.

Day 39: Bern (Oct 25)

Blog post coming soon! Highlights: walking tour of the city. In the meantime, here are today's pictures.

Day 38: Lucerne (Oct 24)

Blog post coming soon! Highlights: walking tour of the city. ​It was still pre-dawn and cold/foggy at Buchloe when I changed trains from Fuessen to Lucerne (changing trains again in Zurich - it's definitely not a no-smoking facility like Germany is.) In the meantime, here are today's pictures.

Switzerland (Oct. 24-30)

5/29 Update: I have deleted Zurich in favor of spending more time in the Bern Oberlander area.
6/12 Update: I found out that the Glacier Express only runs through Oct. 30, so I had to cut one day out of the Bern Oberlander stay
8/3 Update: Had to reroute my St. Moritz to Milan train

Day 39 heading out of Germany into Switzerland, I wanted to try to stop off in Liechtenstein but apparently no express trains stop there. My options:

1. The closest nearby town is Buchs, Switzerland, and only one train out of Fussen gets there within a reasonable time, leaving at 5:51am and getting in at 10:59am with two transfers (Buchloe, Germany, and St Margrethen, Switzerland). Then I could take the 2:12pm direct to Zurich, arriving 3:30pm, or the 3:01pm-4:23pm (via Sargans).
2. Or, I can take that same 5:51am train out of Fussen, transfer in Buchloe, and get into Zurich at 11:44am.

Not sure (yet) if it's worth nearly 5 hours. I'd lose pretty much all the daytime on my first day in Zurich if I did, and there doesn't seem to be much worth stopping for aside from postage stamps.