Travellin' man (and woman) - 27 June 2014 - Brunnen to Bad Kohlgrub

Today we left Switzerland for Germany, this entailed an early start as we were catching the 09:32 from Zurich to Munich. So it was up at 06:00, a lovely sunny morning. Mein Host at the bed and breakfast had left us cereal, yogurt, fruit and tomatoes for our breakfast which was nice of her. We picked up coffee and croissants at Brunnen station and juggled them, two suitcases and two rucsacs onto the train.

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!

"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.

Literally 'All abroad with the Admiral' as we go boating on Lake Luzern - 26 June 2014

As part of my objective to use our Swiss Rail card as much as possible to obtain as much value as possible I had arranged an extravaganza end to end day of travelling, after all we've not done very much so far have we!

We started off catching the 10:11 Ferry from Brunnen to Fluelen. I've wanted to go back to Fluelen ever since we past through two years ago. It had made a big impression on me, We had had to change from a coach onto a train at this point after our original train had been cancelled owing to a landslide. I remember the station being connected to the lake and at that precise point in time a steamer was leaving the harbour heading into the lake, which was a torquise colour with the mountains all around. I just had to go back. In addition the railway line has consent freight trains running up and down!

The boat trip was very pleasant if a little chilly sitting up the front, we moved to the back where we were out of the wind. The boat stops off at a number of points along the route, finally arriving at Fluelen at about 11:00. We had a hour before catching the next boat back. We had a walk around the small town, plenty of bars etc but no shops, we found a deli and brought some lunch, rolls, cheese and ham, I could use my new knife to cut up the cheese.

Whilst Beverley sat in the sun feeding the ducks I stood on the station and filmed the trains using my new monopod for the first time. I was not disappointed with my half hour on the station!

The next boat, which was a paddle steamer would take us to Vitznau where we would catch the Rigi Kulm rack railway. Again we alternated our position from front to back, felt a little conscious eating our own lunch on board but even Admiral's have to look after the francs in their pockets. This boat trip was almost two hours long, it was very nice, the views magnificent and the sun was shining.

The Rigi Kulm is not just a tourist rack railway it's a real working railway as well and to prove the point a cement mixer was being loaded onto a flat truck, I don't mean a cement mixer I mean one of those you get on the back of a lorry. Then a mini skip lorry was driven on to another flat truck, and I noticed on the way up concrete platforms next to the railway where farmers could load their churns onto the train. As we travelled up the mountain, which is over six thousand feet tall, there were quite a lot of building works, new apartments, restaurants etc for the winter sking I expect but all these sites were being served by the railway, it even looked as if they had built a special siding to serve the sites.

A Nun got on with a dog and supplies for the nunnery, got off and drove off in a 4x4. There was an Irish lady with a very demanding baby, well she had ginger hair, who was on the go all the time, exploring, grabbing, pulling, feeding and pinching, and the baby was not much better.

The trip to just below the summit took a little over half an hour, at the top you had an assortment of restaurants and shops and in this case a huge telecoms pylon. We walked up to the very top, the views were better than I expected, what I mean is that I thought it would be misty but it was not to bad, mainly hazy. These summits are so different to ours in England, they very manicured, nice paths laid out etc and you can walk in all directions of the compass, I know we came by train but there can't really be that much of an achievement in walking this peak as there's a path the entire way up and not much needed in the way of map reading!

On our decent we got off at Kaltbad First to catch the Cable Car down, big mistake it was rammed packed. The locals new what they were doing, they stood outside until it was time to leave and then jumped on, not only did they have a window view they were also next to the door for a quick getaway. Seriously, the cable car was packed tighter than my commuter train home, and the smell was not great too, but I expect I was contributing to that as much anyone else!  On the plus side it only took 10 minutes and took us to Weggis another town we had not visited and another boarding port for the boat.

By now I was rather dehydrated so had to purchase a bottle of water, this cost SF3.50 from a kiosk on the lakeside, now that I do call expensive almost £3! We had a short wait for the boat which was the last one to Brunnen, it went a slightly different way visiting the end of the Statter See calling at Ennetburgen and Buochs. I think it was Ennetburgen which had a strange phenomena a river running into the lake which was higher than the lake, if you get what I mean, and I don't me a waterfall, the river was quite obviously running down hill into the lake.

As the boat called at the other stops Beckenried, Gersau and Treib most people got off until we were the last couple at the end of the boat, apart from a large Asian group, who at one point I thought were all going to fall in the lake as they sat on the handrail of the boat.

Arrived back at Brunnen at about 18:40, Beverley suggested that we did not go back to the B&B as we would most probably fall asleep so we made direct to a bar we had see the previous evening ordered a couple of Weiss beers, which went down a treat at SF6 each for 500cl. I also established they did food after an assortment of mimes and pigeon English. We ended up with a big pizza, chicken schnitzel in a bun and big bowl of fries - cost SF28 not bad at all.

To finish off the evening we caught the train to Zug, it was a five minutes late, shock horror. We had 30 minutes in Zug enough time to walk down to the lake sit on a bench for four minutes and take a couple of photos return to the station and buy a couple of coffees, again the train was a couple of minutes late on arrival. So you can't set your watch by the Swiss trains after all!