Thursday 21 May 2009

Between Heaven & Earth - Switzerland


There was only one disappointment from our Switzerland trip – bada dhoonda lekin Raj nahin mila – Yash Raj films ko kitne saare mile…anyways, other than that, it was as dreamlike as any Hindi film dream sequence shot there.  From the outset we had wanted this trip to include more than the standard itinerary of Interlaken and around.  That’s where Zermatt and St.Moritz came in – let’s take a step back and start where we started…Interlaken.  


Plenty of advice ensured we were armed with the Swiss pass when we landed in Zurich.  The train station (one of the two in Zurich as we got to know later) is right opposite the airport.  We landed at 9:45am local time (GMT + 1hr) after taking off from London at 7am.  From the airport we walked across to the train station and took the first available train to Interlaken via Bern – the capital of Switzerland.  The last 30 minutes of the 2-hour journey made us realise just how picture perfect Switzerland could be…the train travelled right along the Thun lake. A lake as large as Thun in itself was a marvel.  Our hotel was a 7-minute walk from the Interlaken west station.  
By then we had already come to experience the hospitality of the people there and this stayed with us throughout the trip.  It was a nice small hotel with its very own Mexican restaurant on the ground floor.  We grabbed lunch at a nearby Indian restaurant and took a nap – a luxury which normally we could not have afforded on our other trips – after all a Swiss holiday is not supposed to be hectic.  We took a bus that evening and visited Lake Brienz.  The beauty of this was; there was not a tourist there at 5 pm.  A lake as pretty as this and no one around – strange but true to our good fortune.  We spent an hour and came back to Interlaken.  We strolled around the streets and headed back to our hotel.
Jungfrau was scheduled for the next day and after a familiar early morning preparation, we started on the 3-hour journey to the mountain top.  It required a couple of changes in between (a place called Grindalwald while going and Lauterbrunnen while coming). Just when we were getting tired of the journey (a good part of this is within the tunnel so there is nothing to see around except for anxious faces of fellow tourists), we arrived at Jungfrau.  The Ice Palace and observatory are the highlights at Jungfrau in addition to the plateau itself.  Plenty of snow as expected and sub zero temperatures.  Before stepping out into the open, we got on our woollen layers.  Indians were all around and so much so; you have a Bollywood restaurant at the summit.  India truly has arrived.  We took a lot of pictures and did enjoy – well, as much as sub zero temperatures would allow.  We were back in Interlaken by evening.
Weather on the next day was bad – it was raining and was not expected to improve till evening.  The safest option was ‘Trummelbach’ with 10 glacier falls, inside the mountain, made accessible by tunnel-lift and illuminated. It was a 45 minutes journey from Interlaken. 20,000 litres of water gushing out per second makes it a sight to see and a sound to hear. It is the only glacier-waterfalls in Europe inside the mountain and still accessible.  Fortunately, it had stopped raining by the time we stepped out allowing us to appreciate the scenery around.  We were back at Interlaken for lunch, and took the cruise on Lake Thun in the afternoon.  The Swiss rail pass made this a free cruise for us.  Clouds and rain kept us company off and on through the 3-hour cruise but none the less, it was an exceptionally scenic ride.  The ride ended in Thun and we took a bus back to Interlaken.
The popular Mt. Titlis found itself on our agenda on day 4.  It is a longish train journey from Interlaken to Elgelberg and ends with a 40-minute cable car journey up the mountain.  The initial part of the cable car ride was as expected.  The last segment is on ‘Rotair’ – apparently the only rotating cable car in the world.  On being told about this, we were expecting the cable car itself to rotate.  However, interestingly, the cable car does not rotate on its way up, it is just the floor on which you are standing which rotates.  This essentially means, you can not hold on to the railing on the walls of the cable car as the walls stay where they are where as you would be rotating.  Within the car, there is the inner circle, which rotates anticlockwise, and the outer circle, which rotates clockwise.  We realised this when we gave our camera to someone for taking our picture.  It so happened that the moment we gave them the camera, they started moving away from us – they were on the inner circle and moving in an opposite direction to us.  Fortunately, they did manage to take a picture before we moved out of the frame.  That is enough going round in circles for now – lets move on.
The climb up Mt. Titlis was breathtaking – I mean literally - you do need to take deep breaths due to the high altitude.  Once we reached the top, it was zero visibility and terribly cold. 
We took the ride on the Ice flier – open chair lift which takes you from the mountain top to somewhere – we are not sure where as we could not see anything.  Thankfully our chair on which we sat was visible else it would have been a scary 20 minutes.  On the other side, we had the option of taking the snow scooter – a small plastic scooter shaped ‘toy’ which can be used to slide down at high speed on the slope.  We were sceptical as nothing was visible around us.  The attendant there tried to convince us that there was nothing to worry as on the other side of the slope there was a wall and that would stop us from going beyond – the only million dollar question was – were we happy crashing into a wall – I mean, it is all nice to know that you won’t fall off the cliff, but zipping into a wall of ice at –6 degrees did not seem inviting – some other day perhaps.  The pizza and soup at the restaurant were welcoming and after the ritual of taking our pictures in the local costume, we headed down the mountain.

It was a bright and clear day on May 6th.  We had to check out of Interlaken and make our way to the ski resort of Zermatt – a travel of about 3 hours.  Since the day was good, we went out to the Thun lake again after breakfast and walked for a couple of miles around the lake enjoying the morning serenity…needless to say, it was a great day for photographs.

We had a delicious Indian lunch and headed to Zermatt.  The journey was uneventful and in fact the terrain was fairly barren as we approached Zermatt.  This was understandable owing to the altitude.  We reached the car free resort by evening and walked to the hotel.  Zermatt had a different feel to it…it was much smaller and quieter compared to Interlaken, plenty of shops though and had a more relaxed ambience to it.  Checked into our room on the 3rd floor and for the first time saw the mighty Matterhorn.  Once we had known that we would be going to Zermatt, we had seen quite a few images of the Matterhorn but seeing it in person was quite a sight.  The absence of any peaks around it gives it such a majestic look.  It was a quiet evening walking through the market following which we retired to our rooms.

May 7th, 9:00am and we are at the Gornergrat railway – all set to take the train to Gornergrat, which is the best place you could see the Matterhorn from.  The journey up the mountains was far more impressive than what we had experienced going up Jungfrau or Mt. Titlis – partly because it was a much shorter journey, the snow and terrain more accessible and also because it was a very pleasant 6 degrees made much warmer by the brightly shining Sun.  45 minutes later, we got off the train and what a sight…the Matterhorn was unbelievable – it looked awesome against the clear blue sky and the best part of it was that we were not freezing.  Lots of pictures later, we got back to Zermatt.  We were wondering how to spend the afternoon when someone suggested we could take the cable car from near our hotel to the some villages up the hills.  We were however late to go all the way to the top, so got off at the first stop (15 minutes) and then decided to walk back to Zermatt through the wooded road.  Although we were unsure if it was a wise decision considering the lonely route back, the scenery around kept us occupied and within the next hour and a half, we were back in Zermatt.

The next day was for the Glacier Express.  We were doing the entire route from Zermatt to St. Moritz – all of 8 hours through some of the most scenic routes a train could pass through. Even the train was a showpiece in itself. Nowhere else will you be able to dine at your seat, against a backdrop of changing panoramas as on the Glacier Express. The journey had plenty of ‘wows’ and you cover quite a bit of varied terrain which otherwise would not be possible.  We reached St. Moritz at 6 pm and our hotel was ideally located just across the station opposite the lake.

A night in St. Moritz was purely for transit and for us to leave for Zurich the next day to catch our evening flight back to London.  It is a 3 hour journey to Zurich so we had the morning to ourselves at St. Moritz.  This happens to be the earliest winter holiday destination in Europe and hosts the rich and famous.  You have every designer label present there – most of which were closed for the season and were to reopen in June.  There again, it worked in our favour as the town was quiet and allowed us to take pictures at ease.  There are quite a few lakes as you travel out of St. Moritz and we took a bus to the one that was the farthest – 45 minutes from where we stayed.

Nothing had prepared us for the beauty of these lakes, some of them still partly frozen. The reflection of the graceful mountains on the lake provided us with some of the best memories of this trip. You will notice how exquisite this place is from the pictures…we just did not feel like leaving from there.  An idyllic walk half way back and a bus journey transported us back to St. Moritz   It was evident that our trip had progressively become better and better as we had travelled from Interlaken to Zermatt to St. Moritz.  We had a nice hot lunch, bought the famous nut cake of the region and headed back to Zurich to catch our flight to London.

The punctuality and organisation of Switzerland was not a surprise for us but what was pleasant to watch was the hospitality – there were numerous instances where in the bus driver got down to assist old people into the bus and the bus only moved ahead once these people were seated.  It still made its next destination right on dot. Amazing isn’t it….