Day 7 - Milan to London

What a sleep! I’m aware I start most of the entries talking of beds and sleep. It’s always been a very important thing to me! I slept like a log. The first thing I knew about today was Andrew calling me on the phone to say that he was sitting in the hotel garden sipping coffee and listening to jazz and that I should wake up and join him. I quickly got ready and went to drink some beautiful coffee and eat a croissant. Our flight home is at 5:30, so we do have some more time here. None to waste!

We walked to the Duomo again, back via the streets that were last night full of football fans, now full of tourists wandering along. It was already very hot.

We had tickets today to go to the rooftops on the cathedral. I’ve done something similar in Santiago. We took a small lift up and walked around with 100s of other people, all posing for photos and hardly marvelling at the view of the spires. It’s a very very ornate building. Every spire individually carved with gargoyles and saints. It has 135 spires in all. It was very hot by now (even at 11:30am) so we shuffled along with the crowds and then made our way down the stairs to the cathedral interior.

The interior is very grand and opulent. As it was Sunday (I assume) there was a service taking place, but visitors were still able to wander around.

We went for a quick drink and then walked back to the hotel via Sempione Park. The park also houses the Castello Sforzesco, which is a huge fortress. It looks very similar to the Moorish building of Spain. There was an event in the park that seemed to be dedicated to sports and fitness. We managed to keep to the shade - and keep from the sports!

There was some very interesting art in the park too.

Now back at our hotel, we collected our luggage, caught the tram to the Duomo. Then the bus to Linate Airport. Took about an hour. Nice easy journey.

It has been a wonderful trip. A real adventure. Despite the reputation of the Swiss, the planning of the trip was a little anxiety inducing at times. For example to ride the Glacier or Bernina Express you first have to reserve a seat, then you buy a ticket. Strangely you can’t do this at the same time. Our Swiss Pass covered everything, once we’d made the reservations months in advance, but that wasn’t always easy to find out.

We’ve eaten some wonderful food, seen some beautiful scenery and generally felt relaxed and happy.

Train travel is not for everyone, it takes time, but sometimes it’s about the journey rather than the destination.

x

Day 6 - Tirano to Milan

Alarm clocks again this morning. We have another train to catch. We were booked onto the 9:08 to Milan. However thanks to Andrea, the hotel owner, we knew that there had been a landslide along the route by lake Como (due the recent high rainfall) and part of the line was closed and replaced by bus. Replacement bus service - the phrase that fills even the most patient person with fear.

Lovely Andrea made us a wonderful breakfast, complete with cherries from his parents’ garden and then dropped us at the station. We managed to catch an earlier train than scheduled and before long we were chugging along through the vineyards on our way to Colico.

At Colico, everyone disembarked and we followed the herd of people to the buses. Easy peasy. The bus took us along the banks of Lake Como and then onto the autostrade, which was a shame, as the inside of a tunnel is not as nice as the outside. 50 minutes later we were deposited at Lecco station where we had a coffee and a 20 minute wait for the train to Milan.

The weather today is a bit grey, but still beautifully warm.

We boarded our train to Milan, which was busy and we passed some unremarkable suburban landscape before pulling into Milano Centrale. The station is huge, and crazy. Full of people trying to navigate their journeys. We found our way to the Metro, Line 1 for our hotel.

We had a ten minute walk to our hotel - the Antica Locanda Leonardo. A beautiful hotel tucked away from the hustle and bustle of this busy, noisy city. We have a great room up in the eaves.

After a quick wash we set out to see the Duomo, the cathedral and main attraction of the city. We couldn’t help but notice that it is the Champions League final tonight between Man City and InterMilan. The square in front of the cathedral was packed with fans wearing the blue and black of Internazionale. They were chanting and waving their flags, and though not threatening we wondered if we’d made a mistake in our itinerary.

We queued for tickets for the Duomo and were told that they were sold out for today, so we are booked in for tomorrow. We found a small cafe for lunch, Andrew had a sliced boar meat and olive paste panini (of course he did) while I had a delicious salad.

We walked around a little and then entered the main area for designer shopping - Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. When I looked inside this beautiful covered shopping area I cried. Despite the throngs of people, you could still take in the beauty by simply looking up.

We then headed to the Novecento musuem which has modern art (all 20th century) so this was right up our street. The building was like a small version of the Guggenheim in New York, with sweeping white spiral slopes to take you up to the top of the building. Great view of the Duomo too!

We really loved the art here and it was a nice way to spend a few hours. After this we treated ourselves to an ice cream and walked to our next stop. Villa Necchi Campiglio. This is a house that has been restored by the Italian version of the National Trust. It was built in 1932 by an Italian architect for a wealthy Milan resident and entrepreneur. It is a stunning place. It’s been very sympathetically restored despite being commandeered in WW2 by the Italian army and then the British. We could imagine it being very much a party place. It was the first private home in Milan to have a swimming pool.

After two hours of dreaming that we owned the place, we caught the number 16 tram back to the hotel where we relaxed and read until dinner time.

We caught the 16 tram back into the centre of Milan and had a delicious last meal just near the main square, near the famous La Scala opera house.

There were lots of football fans hanging around trying to watch the match on screens in the bars, and sadly, they did not win, but we were safely back in our hotel when the final whistle went.

The City seems very quiet now.

Last day tomorrow.

Day 5 - Chur to Tirano

A rather fitful sleep. Our room is on a narrow pedestrian street and the building opposite is being renovated. They started using angle grinders at 7am, which was a bit of a shock. We went down to breakfast which was nice and in a very traditional bar area - lots of wood and fur. As our next train is not until 1:30 we decided to get a bus or tram to anywhere. We walked down to the main station and got on the first bus we saw. The number 5. This was an epic fail, as the bus went around the block and 13 minutes later we were back where we started.

Next we tried a tram. The tram is called the Arosabahn which takes you up into the the mountains. And hour there, and hour back. Bit of a risk, but decided to give it a go. We got on the tram but after two minutes the guard got on and asked us to change trams! We decided that this was a sign and gave up!

Last night we had seen an ice cream place which was shut, so we went back and treated ourselves. Andrew had peach and I had fruits of the forest. Delicious.

We ambled around visiting the two churches and the small streets. It was very hot and sunny. Chur is quite pretty.

After a couple of pleasant hours we sat in a café opposite the station and had a drink before getting ready to board the train. The Bernina Express is a legendary train ride that is often hailed as one of the most scenic in the world. That, and the glacier express are the main reasons for our trip. We booked both train journeys and then worked the rest of the trip around it. It wasn’t very easy to figure out how to book! We had left it a little late but for today we have brilliant seats.

We sat by the window and a young Japanese couple got on and sat by us. They went on to produce cameras and phones from their bag. Every gadget to capture the trip. They fussed and faffed for an hour until they settled in. It made us really think about how we were enjoying the trip and we found ourselves less likely to reach for our phones and to just enjoy the view.

We moved through the landscape of Switzerland, leaving Chur and travelling south enroute to Italy.

We start a gentle climb through the valley, most of the 4 and a half hour journey is going upward. A mixture of landscape and weather.

As we wound our way up, we could often see the front of the train as we were in the last carriage. The red train against the backdrop of either green fields or pine trees or blue lakes or grey cliffs was quite beautiful. The photographs (especially with reflections of the insides of the carriage) don’t even come close to doing the views justice, but please believe that there were many breathtaking moments.

You can see from the picture how the elevation changes from high to low. After being in the higher altitude where was saw the clearest waters and snow covered mountains we started to hurtle downhill. We really did pick up from speed now.

Two of the main attractions of the Bernina Express are the Landwasser viaduct, which was constructed in 1901 and really is phenomenal. The second is the Brusio spiral viaduct. This is in the last 30 minutes of the trip.

During the construction of the railway, its engineers decided that its route and features ought to follow and adapt to the natural landscape. They wanted to avoid construction of a rack railway, so that the line could be used for both passenger and freight traffic; the adoption of a rack system would have made it impossible to run heavy trains, effectively preventing the line's use by freight trains. It also needed to fit on the valley which was quite narrow, so a circular viaduct was designed. It was certainly an experience seeing the front of the train appear as if it was going to join the back!

Now we were in Tirano, the end of the line. We are in Italy! It was 6pm.

We left the station and after a ten minute walk through some tumble down narrow streets we found the hotel. A small stone building that has the walls of an old castle in its grounds. Andrea, the owner, greeted us with a fond welcome and talked us through what to see and where to eat in Tirano.

We took his recommendation for dinner and set off to the old town where they were holding an event for the World Nordic Walking Championships!

Dinner was delicious - mushroom risotto for me and seafood pasta for Andrew. It’s a shame not being able to spend more time here. Italy is such a lovely place.

Today has been wonderful. Really a magical experience.

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Day 4 - Interlaken to Chur

Had a long deep sleep in a squishy bed. The alarm woke us at 7am. We had a delicious breakfast in the hotel sitting in the morning sunshine. We’ve been so lucky with the weather so far. The forecast was rain every day and it’s been sunshine every day!

Interlaken was waking up and looked beautiful as we set off for the station to catch the 9:08 to Brig. This meant getting back on the Golden Pass Express line and changing in Spiez before catching a regional train. Brig is where we pick up the next train - The Glacier Express. The whole reason for this trip.

We had a 50 minute wait so walked into Brig for a coffee. All the shops were closed on this Thursday morning. We couldn’t fathom why, then sitting outside a cafe in the main square we heard a band start to play and a marching band appeared. There was clearly a religious festival of some kind and the band and procession of old soldiers, nuns, scouts and various town dignitaries gathered in front of the church a few feet from where we sat.

I don’t think Brig would take a lot of exploring but it’s a very quaint little village with cobbled squares and cafes to sit in. We went back to the station to get ready for the next train. VERY exciting!

The train arrived on time and we boarded and found our seats. The train was already full since it had started at Zermatt (we were picking it up about 40% of the way into its journey from Zermatt to St Moritz) but easily found out reserved seats.

The train crosses the river Rhone a few minutes after leaving Brig, and continues its way east into the Upper Rhone Valley. At end of the valley, in Oberwald, the train reached an altitude of 1366 m.

We had pre-ordered a meal on the train and we were served a bit too quickly, so by 11:45 we were eating salad and stroganoff!

The table on the other side of the train was made up a South African couple and a German man and his son. They were speaking very loudly about all the things they’ve seen and done. It would’ve been nicer if there was a little less chat and a little more looking out of the window.

The first stop was Andermatt. There seemed to be a lot of building work here and a look at the brochure told us that it’s a Swiss Alps holiday resort under construction. The landscape changed afterwards largely to meadows, flowers and cows.

After leaving Andermatt we travel along the Oberalppass, where we were pulled up to the highest point of the trip.

It was all down hill from there! Next stop Disentis, at 2pm. We’d been on the train for two and a half hours and it felt like 30 minutes.

Disentis is the largest Romansh speaking communal in Switzerland. We learned that there are four official languages in Switzerland: German, French, Italian and Romansh (a descendant from the ‘vulgar Latin’ spoken in the Roman Empire). German is by far the most dominant language.

Rain set in at this point and was running down the windows of the carriage, but as the landscape is pretty similar in this stretch it wasn’t a problem. As we descended, we were joined by the upper River Rhine - two major European rivers in a matter of hours!

Once we passed Disentis we were soon back at sea level, beside the increasingly wide river and rock walls and the occasional cave carved out over the centuries. We got out of the train at Chur (pronounced Ker) to absolutely baking sunshine, wide cobbled streets and a little walk to our hotel.

Hotel - in the loosest sense - there wasn’t a great deal of choice in Chur, so it’s more of a hostel. We share a toilet (!!) but we are slap bang in the old town, so easy access to all there is to see.

The Glacier Express was a wonderful experience. Beautiful scenery and a real ‘once in a lifetime’ experience.

We took a little walk around Chur, by now it was around 5pm, and finding the museums and galleries closed 😮, sat in a little square with a cold beer for a while. No idea why sitting on a train is so tiring! We have a little more time here than in some other stops we’ve had.

Chur is the capital of the Graubünden canton and the oldest city in Switzerland. The old town area is a car-free maze of small streets, packed with cafes and restaurants, arty shops, hairdressers and wool shops, as well as small hotels, including ours.

After a shower and some time with our books, we went out for dinner. There are so many more restaurants here than everywhere else we’ve stayed so far, so we went for … Sri Lankan! Veggie curry for me and roti with lamb for Andrew. We then had a slow walk around the town and off to bed for an early night.

xx

Day 3 - Montreux to Interlaken

Rude.

Alarm went off at 6:55am. I opened my tired eyes taking some time to figure out where I was and what hurt. Then I saw the view from my bed.

What a way to wake up. The early start is due to an early train as we head off on the next leg of this adventure. In truth we could have stayed here for a few days. It’s so nice just looking at the lake. I could imagine me with my book and a chair and just breathing the fresh air. Last night I dipped my toes into the lake. Cold but not unbearable.

We ate breakfast in the hotel (included) pastries, eggs and toast and incredibly weak coffee. Back to the room and packed up and we are off again. A walk by the lake-side again and chose a cafe that did real coffee before boarding the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken Ost. This is a beautiful panoramic train. Unfortunately we couldn’t get seats together when we booked, but are either side of an aisle and facing forward. Andrew sat next to a very nice American couple that are doing one hell of a train journey through France and Switzerland. Americans are always good value and interesting to chat with.

We set off at a slow 35km/ph and wound our way around the lake climbing higher and higher into the green hills.

Although the train is an express, it’s not fast and it does stop at a few places. Moboven (where you change for Gruyère), Gstaad (famous for skiing), Schonried, Saanenm and Zweisimmen. We had to change at Zweisimmen as the track changes from narrow (to get up the mountains we’ve just left behind) to standard track gauge. The train is supposed to lift up, the wheels move out and then we carry on. However, although the Swiss are the first to develop this ‘engineering miracle’ it has stopped working so we had to slum it on a regional train for the last leg of the journey to Interlaken. Actually no slumming involved since a) the trains are phenomenally clean and spacious and b) we have a first class pass.

We have bought a three day Swiss Pass ticket which gives us unlimited first class travel on all trains, buses, trams and boats around Switzerland. Although we weren’t able to get into First on the Golden Pass railway, the switch to this regional train means a nice first class carriage for the rest of this morning’s journey.

We passed Lake Thun as we arrived at Interlaken OST station. It’s a warm sunny day again.

We found left luggage lockers and ran for our next train. Part of the Jungfrau region, we were on our way to Grindelwald.

At Grindlewald Terminal we headed to the Jungfraujoch ticket queue. A rather grumpy fella sold us some tickets and we got some lunch. I had a lentil salad and Andrew noodles. We boarded the high speed gondola up to Eigergletscher (2,320m). We’d normally be wearing ski boots, but not today! The views are wonderful. No snow. Just green as far as you could see. There are some snow capped mountains in the distance. We had the gondola to ourselves so were able to walk around and take some pictures. We passed the north face of the Eiger - hard to believe that people could climb it.

At the top of the gondola we needed to get our 4th train of the day. The Jungfraubahn.

This train is part of a mountain rack railway. I’m no expert on trains, so had to look this up. It’s powered by electricity, and when it travels downhill it stores the electricity to power it up again. The “rack” part is that there are large teeth that run between the track and lock in like cogs to the underside of the carriage, so that the train doesn’t just run downhill.

The train really does drag you up - if you are facing downhill you do have to stop yourself from falling into the lap of the passenger opposite.

Within 20 minutes we were at the top. The Top of Europe (at 3,500 metres) Jungfraujioch is the highest accessible point in Europe so promised some breathtaking views. When you leave the train you follow the signs to the “tour”. It’s a self guided route and was actually very good. An immersive theatre area that made you feel as if you were a bird soaring around the mountain tops and an ice palace. The ice palace was actually a series of corridors carved out of the ice that you walked through and there were various ice sculptures to marvel at. The floor was also made of ice, so made for an interesting walk. We were hugely underdressed for this. We hadn’t really felt that there was enough time to visit this as the trains to it, plus the time there and back, takes around 5 hours so we weren’t convinced we would be able to make it. It was very much a decide on the day thing. Andrew was wearing suede shoes, chinos, a summer shirt and blazer, and I had a strapped dress, sandals and blazer. I even had my sun hat! We got some very strange looks from everyone else, all wearing ski gear or pac-a-macs!

The last part we visited was the Sphinx observatory. It is named after the rock on which it is located. It is the highest permanently manned observatory in the world. You can walk outside or stay inside. I mean, who stays inside? We stepped out and despite it being -1C it was actually very pleasant. Sunglasses on and we stared at the breathtaking views - they are breathtaking because of the views but also because it’s so high and literally quite a struggle to breathe.

We had a ticket for a slightly different train down. This one takes you from the very top to Grindelwald. It’s the same rack style train and this traverses the side of the mountains under the cable car. Beautiful scenery - farms with cows, lots of green fields (half expected to see Julie Andrews running along) and warming up with each metre it descends. Then we swapped to a regular regional train to take us back to Interlaken and our luggage.

We walked through Interlaken for 5 minutes before finding our hotel. Imaginatively called ”The Hotel Interlaken”. it feels very much like a ski resort here. Pretty with quite a lot of designer shops.

We have the ‘tiny room’, which is not tiny and has a pretty balcony overlooking the main street. We opted for an Italian meal tonight (despite being in the German speaking area of Switzerland). I had gnocchi with tomato and mozzarella and Andrew had the Romana Vacanze pizza. Despite a lot of sitting on trains, it has been quite a tiring day - bu we’ve had such a good time. We went for a little walk after dinner and Interlaken seemed to have gone to sleep. We found two pretty churches next to each other - not something you often see - one Roman Catholic and one Protestant.

Today we have been on seven trains. All punctual, all clean and all with cracking views.

Night night

ps the road we are in is called Schlossstrasse. Not often you see that many ‘s’ in one word is it?

Day 2 - Paris to Montreux

Good morning from beautiful Paris. The alarm went off at 7:15 and we opened the shutters to beautiful blue skies.

We left the very nice little hotel (definitely staying there again) and headed for the metro station - Bastille. We’d spotted a nice bistro last night next to the metro that we’d earmarked for breakfast. Le Petit dejeuner - 14 EUR for a juice, water, coffee, croissant with jam, and eggs with toast. The nice waiter said “omelette” but what arrived were three fried eggs each. Andrew then ate my eggs and his eggs! Six egg Bryan - the man is a machine.

We caught the metro one stop (line 1) to Gare de Lyon where we were due on the 10:16 to Geneva. A visit to Gare de Lyon would not be complete without a stop at Le Train Bleu. A most beautiful restaurant inside the station. I’ve been here before with my friend Julie for lunch, and really wanted Andrew to see it.

The interior of the restaurant dates back to 1901. There are frescoes on the ceiling, over the top art nouveau chandeliers, dark wooden tables with pristine white tablecloths and waiters with long white aprons. If you had to imagine a typical french restaurant, this would be it. It’s not stupidly expensive and the staff are polite and friendly (very un Parisian).

Coffee complete we headed back to the platforms, via a macaron shop, to find our first train of the day. Paris to Geneva on the TGV Lyria. A high speed train that would whisk us into Switzerland in just over three hours. The train was packed - we had reserved seats, sat together and at exactly the scheduled departure time we set off and soon were hurtling through French countryside.

There were only three stops on this leg of our journey. Two regional French towns and then Geneva. Our seat allocation meant that we were travelling backwards. Not my favourite way to be, especially at speeds over 200mph! After about two hours I felt a little green so went to sit in the buffet car in order to recalibrate. The train is a double decker and the buffet car was on the upper deck and I started to feel much better and took a few photos of the beautiful scenery.

We arrived in Geneva at 13:30, exactly on time. Our next train departed Geneva at 14:10, so we had time to buy a drink and a baguette and wait for the next train. The Geneva to Brig local train, with stops at Lausanne, Vevey (where Nestle have their HQ), then Montreux, which was to be our stop until the next day.

Within ten minutes of leaving Geneva, tucking into our lunch we were treated to the most spectacular views of Lake Geneva. Despite the forecast of rain we’ve been very lucky and the sun was shining and the sky was blue. The beautiful lake glistened in the sunshine.

An hour later we arrived in Montreux station. Thirty steps from the platform and we found ourselves beside the lake. We are on the “other half” of Lake Geneva. Lake Geneva is shared (?) between the French to the south and the Swiss to the north, 40:60. The part we are on is known by the Swiss as Lake Leman. It was hard to believe that 5 hours ago we were in busy Paris and now we were walking next to a lake with boats, paddle boarders and pedalos. The weather was HOT.

We saw a statue of Freddie Mercury on our way to the hotel. Queen recorded seven albums here and Freddie had an apartment and villa here, and the locals are rightly proud of the fact.

We checked into our hotel - the Golf-Hotel Rene Capt (odd name, particularly as there is no golf course in sight) and were very happy with our little balcony and lake view. We spent an hour relaxing on the balcony then had a drink on the terrace before heading out to dinner.

We took a walk into the old town, which was a bit like walking up a ski slope in ski boots! Blooming steep. Very nice little town, although everything was closing. Most of the buildings look quite alpine - large shutters, small windows - a bit like something from Hansel and Gretal. No luck with a restaurant in the old town so we walked back down to the lake.

We found a beautiful restaurant called La Terrasse du Petit Palais. We decided to just eat there whatever as it has such a nice terrace overlooking the lake. Andrew had Caesar salad and I had “a collection of antique tomatoes with peaches and limoncello sorbet”. Followed by Steak Tartare for Andrew and pasta with pesto and buratta for me. The prices were not petit at all. Bit of a gulp but we were in now, so best to just enjoy. The antique tomatoes (they were fresh) were so delicious , especially with the peaches and the pasta was amazing. Pesto can be a bit rich, but this was so subtle. Andrew said his salad was gorgeous and so was his main course. The service was good, the restaurant was good, the food was excellent. Nice.

We then walked back along the lake shore, past Freddie again and we watched the sun go down, coming across beautiful sculptures dotted along the promenade.

We tried to walk to Chillon castle, and old 12th century fort but we couldn’t make it (turned out to be on a small island close to the shore) and as the best views are from the lake we just got as close as we could and then turned back.

Montreux is absolutely breathtaking. It’s hard to take in the beauty of the lake surrounded by the snow-capped mountains of the Savoy Alps and the big sky. We are not here for long, but it’s been a wonderful day. Perhaps we’ll come back one day.