It was the 07:21 from Brunnen to Zug, where we had four minutes to get from platform 3 to platform 5 by subway with big cases. Platform 5 is on a different branch to platform 3 so it was quite a feat to have managed it. Here we caught the train to Zurich, arriving at about 08:15, so plenty of time to catch our next connection. Given that Zurich is populated by "The Gnomes" and given it's a major financial centre of the world and it's prime commuting time I think we saw at most three people in suits, they either go in cognito or it's all an elaborate lie!
We had half an hour siting on the station, lots of comings and goings, unfortunately I was not my normal schoolboy self rushing backwards and forwards along the platform as I was suffering the after effects of to many wheat beers the night before!
I did manage to see the Stuggart train arrive, pulled in by an engine then uncoupled and another engine arrive to be the motive power which coupled up with the carriages.
Our train was shunted in so was not so exciting. I had booked effectively five sets of tickets for this journey, our Rail card from Brunnen to St Margrethen on the Swiss border, St Margrethen to Lindau (the first stop in Germany, an island on Lake Constantine) and Lindau to Bad Kohlgrub, plus seat reservations between Zurich and Lindau and Lindau and Munich, different seats but in the same carriage. Doing it this way saved quite a bit of money as the tickets in Germany as so much cheaper than Switzerland, in fact two people travel anywhere in Germany with special tickets for something like €28 as long as you don't use the ICE trains.
The train from Zurich to Munich was very busy and I was pleased I had booked seats, although given we were on the platform before the train arrived I expect we would have got seats. At various points people were standing in the aisles, which Beverley was not very pleased about as they choose to stand right next to her. The on board 'mini-bar' serving hot drinks and snacks was manned by a very cheerful Bangledeshian, I know this because someone asked him if he came from Sri Lanka! How he managed to move his trolley up and down the aisle was little short of a miracle!
Given the journey was just under four hours it went pretty quickly. I spent most of my time catching up with this blog. I did have my tickets inspected three times, and was asked for my MasterCard which of course had been stolen so had to supply my passport. Given that we went Switzerland to Austria, and Austria to Germany I was surprised that there was no passport control, well not really as it would have taken hours, however when travelling from Luino in Italy to Bellinzona (sounds like a Roxy Music song) by train and couple of years ago the Swiss boarder control where on board to check our passports and ask where we going and why we were going there, very nicely I might add.
Arrived in Munich two minutes late, we had departed two minutes late, I travel a lot on trains all over the country in England and very rarely do the trains arrive on time and that's when they depart on time, so that was a good effort by the Swiss Railways.
And so to Munich, what a huge station and what a varied amount of trains, we had an hour here, first stop the loo and then pick up some lunch, it was a pleasant change to purchase a small snack and coffee for a reasonable price after the excesses of Switzerland. Like our stations people were giving a way freebies, in this case it was ice pops, not one but two, we dumped one and had the other a rather over sweet black cherry affair.
We now had two more trains to catch, a local service to Murnau, where we changed on to even smaller local service, two carriages only to our final destination, Bad Kohlgrub. When I booked the accommodation the agent said I could get a taxi and the station, I don't think so. So not knowing where we were or where we were staying we walked down the road into town, shortly we found map board, which not only has the town map it also displays local walks just like they have in France. We were surprised to find that the road we wanted was just behind us. This was encouraging, we walked off down the road, walked back and walked down again without much success. I must admit I'm never sure how to interrupt continental addresses. Finally having asked a couple of people we arrived. The stupid thing is that where we are staying is called the Linbach Hof, which was sign posted at the top of the road and also carved into the front of the building. If that had been included in the address we would have been fine. So in fact our accommodation is about 7 minutes walk from the station.
Our host did not speak English (why should she) we don't speak Germany so see summoned the services of her neighbour Rosie to act as interpreter. Having managed all the formalities it ws time to rush down to this very pleasant town to buy in some supplies for the weekend.
We finished the day off with a meal in a local resturant, sitting outside in the sun, it was an Itialian resturant so we finished off the evening saying goodbye in Italian!
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