"We do that in England" - 25 June 2014

Today was move on day, we leave Barabara and Charlie to continue our holiday on Lake Luzern staying in a B&B at Brunnen. But first I got up early to have some time down at Neuchatel Railway Station, this enabled me to give Charlie one final farewell before he departed for work.

I find being on a railway station early in the morning during rush hour but not having to travel to work very satisfying. I had arrived at 06:40, the sun had risen and was throwing some great light on to the railway and platforms. The station was not that busy, there were a few people about, grabbing a quick smoke before boarding their trains. As 07:00 approached more commuters arrived and so did more trains. The busiest period was between 07:00 and 08:00, and I noticed that Neuchatel is really a terminus, most trains come in from the east and depart for the east, only a few come in from the west and continue out to the east.

Neuchatel Station early morning

I noticed some shunting going on down the far end of the station, but by the time I got there the engine and moved out to the sidings. There was a road running alongside the railway with a low fence which I noticed from the railway overbridge and made a B line for it and was rewarded with some shunting as an engineers train arrived.

Having had my fix of train movements I went back to join Beverley and Barabara for one last breakfast before we walked down into town to purchase a Swiss Army knife, what else would you buy in Switzerland other than Chocolate! I've had a number of Swiss Army knifes but the most recent one has been mislaid, being on holiday I feel a little lost without it as it's so useful, we had seen them in Bern yesterday at between SF19 and SF20 but was not sure how that compared with the UK, a search on Amazon showed the same knife would cost about £12, so basically the same price. I'm now the proud owner of a new knife, I expect the old one will turn up now, just like the video battery.

We had a wander along the lakeside as far as the harbour before returning for lunch on the bus, that is lunch back at the house, returning by bus. Then it was time to say goodbye, we caught the 13:01 from Neuchatel and finally arrived at Brunnen at about 16:10, having changed at Bern and Luzern, we missed the connection at the latter as we were at the end of the train and our departing train was not on the platform I expected. We got to the right platform jumped on the train but nothing happened, it was the front four coaches only. I expected to wait another hour but there was another departure in 9 minutes.

The B&B was only 3 minutes from the station in fact it over looked the end of the platform, you had a good view of the trains whilst sitting on the throne! It was a traditional Swiss chalet but for some reason a petrol station / garage was opposite it and behind it was car dealership. We were located in the loft of the house where there was a shared bathroom ( but luckily no other guests) and a small kitchenette with fridge and kettle. The bed was very low but comfortable. I paid SF 120 per night which is expensive compared to the Uk, but it was comfortable, clean and the breakfast set us up for the day the following morning.

I always feel a little lost on arriving at a new place aboard I don't know and where I don't know the langauge, this being the first time we had experienced German, generally I can get by with Spainish, Italian and French but German is a different thing altogether. I thought a Zimmer was a walking aid but in German it parking.

We wandered around the small town down to the lakeside, looked in the various bars and restaurants for somewhere to dine, I'm always a bit cautious as I continuously believe I'm going to be ripped off, which is very unfair on the locals. Beverley suggested going back to the B&B to check out Trip Advisor. On the way back I thought the lady crossing the road was from the B&B, she wasn't, and I expect she is mightily confused when some middle aged Englishman says hello not just once but twice, with the second one being very loud. She turned round and mumbled a hello and hurried on, if that was you I apologise 

We finally settled on a very expensive restaurant, Gasthaus PLUSPUNKT, just around the corner, where we had a very nice meal, in a very nice setting with good service, they were surprised when I left a tip 'We do that in England" I said.

You can set your watch to a Swiss Train, there so reliable. - 24 June 2014

Today was the first day using our Swiss Rail pass, this provides free travel on all trains, buses and boats, also free entry to over 400 museums and reduced travel on cable cars, chair lifts and mountain railways. There quite expenses but if used well provide good value for money.

I had already done some pre-planning and knew that we would be going on a cruise on Lake Neuchatel, in fact a return trip for both of us on Lake Neuchatel would cover the cost of the Swiss card for today (Swiss Cards are valid for a predetermined length of time, in our case four days). What I hadn't done was study the boat timetable in any great detail and it turns out that there was limited services on the lake and that we did not really want to spend hours in say Murten or Biel/Bienne apparently it's a boring trip by boat there.

So with Barbara's help the night before we worked out an intinary that would take us on a boat cruise to Murten, give us a few hours in Bern and then another train trip to Interlaken and back, total ticket cost at face value Swiss Francs 213, pounds in already!

So we set off to catch the 10:00 ferry to Murten, the weather was overcast and a little drizzly. We were joined on the ferry by two groups of school children all wildly excited, one group were taken outside onto the top deck and thrown overboard, the younger ones left inside with the rest of the travellers. I gues there was something like 14 or15 other passengers a young couple with a baby who went all the way, an elderly pair of women obviously going walking decked out in boots, with Leki sticks. Most passengers were, what shall we say, I know older than us

One group of children got off at the first stop and the other group midway through the canal that links lakes Neuchatel and Murten. I spent a little time on deck, whilst breezy it was not really cold although raining a little. A pretty peaceful way to travel, although the the chairs were not that comfortable being dining table type.

Once we arrived at Merton we had to shoot through the very charming town to catch a train to Bern, we did have time to stop at the chemist to purchase some lip balsam, now that ws fun. Merten is in a German speaking part of Switzerland whilst Neuchatel is in French. We know a little French but very little German, limited to 'Donwater blitzen', 'Shoot the Englander' and 'Himmel, snell snell ( can't even spell it) all, sayings picked up from reading a Commando War books and The Victor comic. Beverley ended up spending SF10 on 'veery good ceam'.

The trip from Murten to Bern was pleasant enough through nice open countryside, lots of fields growing lots of Market Gareen produce. A number of the stations were hail and ride or I should say  'Halt Auf Verlangen' in fact a number of the stations were really small and in the middle of nowhere, well at least they appeared to be - Ferenbalm-Gurbru and Gummenen being particular examples.

Bern was a particularly horrible station, deep underground dark and dingy very much like Birmingham New Street. These Swiss stations have vast numbers of Platforms with trains arriving and departing all the time, never a dull moment and a train spotters paradise.

Having negotiated our way out of the Station we headed for the old town of Bern. Bern boasts the Parliament building for the Swiss confederation, unlike the Houses of Parliament you can get up close and touch the building fabric, if you want to, I didn't I might add.

Bern was a very attractive City, the main Street (Martgasse, Kramgasse and Gerechtigkaitsgasse) down to the river were flanked on each side by impressive buildings and a covered walkway where the shops were and then under the shops were cellars opening into the street which are also used as shops. There we a lot of tourist about in big groups being led by guides with poles (no not the Eastern European type).

The bottom half of the Main streets are for people only apart from deliveries and trolley busses. Once you are at the far end of the City you cross the river (Aare) and you come to the Bear pits. Bern and bears go back a long way, why I don't know but they are displayed on their flag. I guess it's a bit like the Ravens at the Tower of London or the Bamboons on the Rock of Gibralter.  There were I think four bears in the enclosure, brown ones they appeared happy enough, having been born in captivity I guess they don't know any difference, Beverley found it a little sad.

We returned to the Station via another route and picked up, some great postcards, pricy but really good, old posters of Swiss Travel and local paintings. We spent a good two and half hours in Berne and then moved onto Interlaken. I had seen this railway on Sunday when Charlie had driven off down to Grund. It's pretty scenic running along the length of Thuner See (Lake Thurn). Unfortunately we got off at Interlaken Ost rather than West which is in the centre of town. We only had a hour before the return trip so visited the coop, and had a coffee, I also bought at padlock for my rucsac as I had felt a little vunerable at Bern station following the events at Paris on Saturday.

The return trip was the same way back but without the boat trip. In all we caught four trains none of them were late, none of them cancelled, in fact I did not see any cancelled or delayed trains advertised.