Luscious Lucerne

Done with the breath taking views of Junfrau, next day we headed to our next destination. Lucerne. Lucerne is known as a travellers delight in Switzerland. It is comparatively an economical part of Switzerland and hence we had obviously left our shopping for Lucerne. We boarded the famous GoldenPass Panorama train which would take us from Interlaken OST to Lucerne. The journey was again a breathtaking one, but we had almost got used to such amazing scenery by then.

Once in Lucerne we checked into our scenic Hotel which was right opposite the so very famous wooden bridge of Lucerne. It was a pretty hotel too, small and compact. We then headed out in search of food as we were really hungry and found a good Indian restaurant there. We were told Virender Shewag, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachhan where some of the frequenters there when there are in Lucerne and the restaurant was filled with their photos. The food was pretty good too. Once our stomach was full, we ventured out to explore Lucerne. We took a mini train ride of the city, which pretty much covered the entire city as we were very tired. We then headed to a wonderful church and spent some time out there.

With still time on our hands we decided to take a cruise on the Lake Lucerne. The cruise was pretty ordinary when compared to our previous cruise and also in anticipation of the one we would be having the next day on our way to Mt Pilatus. In the evening we went in search of the so very famous statue of the Dyeing Lion of Lucerne. It is a monument in honour of the soldiers that were killed in a war fighting for Lucerne.

Done for the day, we hit our bed really tired in order to be fresh for our expedition to Mt Pilatus the next day.

Jungfraujoch, The Top of Europe

We got up at 7 in the morning to head to the Place we were so eager to see and immerse in, The Jungfraujoch. There are two approaches to Jungfrau, we opted to proceed via Grindalwald. We took a train from Interlaken OST to Grindalwald, it was a real treat is all I can say, and I was told by the fellow travelers that it was just the beginning.


The Jungfrau Bahn

At Grindalwald we had to change to another train taking us all the way up to Kleine Scheidegg. The climb up the mountain was just amazing, we were left wondering which is a better view, to see the mountain that we were approaching or to see the town we were leaving behind and we ended up changing seats often in pursuit of having the best of both the worlds. Kleine Sheidegg is the place where we had to change over to the so very famous Jungfrau-Bahn, the Train that climbs literally vertically up into the Alps taking us to Jungfrau, the top of Europe. It is a journey that takes us in a tunnel for about 40 mins straight and the tunnel is dug right through the mountain. The Jungfrau-Bahn took about an hour climbing through the mountain to lead us to Jungfraujoch. Jungfraujoch, is the top most point that a human being can reach in the whole of Europe. The Jungfrau-Bahn stopped at 3 places on our way up to give some really breath taking views of the Mountain, from within it. It was a moment to savor. I got out of the train in my enthu in a hurry to catch a great view, only to rush back into the train immediately as it did not take me more than a second to realize I was without my coat! The view that I had, once I had covered myself up sufficiently was something special, just cant be explained in words. Its a shame I don’t have a better picture of it.


View of the Apls from a Tunnel

Once we had done with the tunnel view, we ran back to the train which was whistling away for people to climb over to continue the journey upto to our destination. After two more such stops we finally reached the Jungfraujoch.


View of the Alps from Jungfraujoch

Once at the Jungraujoch we immediately realized we need some more protection from the cold, we dug into our bags for more layers of clothing. We then proceeded straight to the Watch tower from where we get amazing views of the Alps. Once we were done with the views we headed straight to the Sphinx Observation tower, the Top most point we could get to in Europe. We visited the Einstein Laboratory down there too. We then headed to what we really wanted to do, walk, feel and see ice. Here we come, the Jungfrau Plateau. It was the first for us and it was the best feeling. Unfortunately though my aunt who was accompanying me had a fall and I had to run over to lift her up and clean her of the snow left over her dress. We then sighted a make shift cafe out there and had a hot cup of coffee which turned cold pretty fast. The sight of fellow travellers slipping on ice and having a big bad fall was both funny and sad. And among the people falling, one common thing was, they were mostly Indians! We are not used to snow you see. We really enjoyed playing in snow, making a snow ball, throwing it at each other and posing for some photos.



The Sphinx Tower from the Plateau




At the Plateau

Play over, and we headed to another one of kind at Jungfrau, The ICE PALACE. The ice palace is an exhibit of carvings made of ice in a cave dug inside the mountain. The roof, the floor and the walls are completely covered with ice and it was really chilling experience, though an amazing one.

An Ice Carving at the Ice Palace

Now our stomach started seeking our attention and we headed right over to a restaurant. Having food at 3500 meters above sea level was something special and to get an Indian restaurant there was really great. It was hard to believe that it was actually cheaper for a lunch out there than at Interlaken or anywhere in Swiss. Over with lunch, we did some small souvenir shopping and headed back to Interlaken bidding good bye to the best place I had ever stepped on.

A salute to the Swiss engineering team for such a magnificent piece of engineering to make possible for mankind to visit a place such as that.

Scintilating Interlaken

Interlaken- The city between the two lakes.

The Journey from Geneva to Interlaken via Bern, the capital of Switzerland was one of those breath taking journeys of my life, a journey I would cherish to my grave. The moment we crossed the Geneva Station, the view of the Lac Leman from the train was just amazing. We had a really comfortable seat to settle into as we were booked into the 1st Class. We had the privilege of viewing the ever so popular Swiss cows for the first time through the train. Now we knew we are getting into the real Switzerland that we so desperately wanted to see all our life.


A View of Lac Leman from the train

It was a two hour journey to Bern from Geneva, a journey we thoroughly enjoyed. The 12x camera I had brought with me was put into good use along the journey. We were going mad clicking away at just about everything and anything we could see, it was just so lovely. Each and every moment was worth the visit to the Swiss. We reached Bern at about 11 am and took the connecting train to Interlaken to begin another breath taking journey. We reached Interlaken West station around 12.30 PM and then headed to our Hotel, The Splendid. We realized they were pretty serious about the 3PM check in and we had to wait till such time. We deposited our luggage with the reception and headed out to have a stroll and catch up a well deserved lunch. We had our lunch in a French Restaurant run by a French national settled in Swiss. The rice and curry was surprisingly very tasty and your truly treated myself to an extra serving of the same. We then headed back to our Hotel and checked in. We found it to be a pretty cozy one. One enquiry with the reception staff who were pretty courteous we were advice to head to the Harder Köln, a mountain peak nearby. And here began the real expedition. It was our first climb. We took a "cog wheel" up the mountain and it was thrilling going up the mountain. Once on top, we roamed around and had a wonderful view of the Interlaken town. We could see both the West and OST stations from the top. After spending close to 2 hrs up there, we headed back down on the very last trip of the cog wheel, not before we met a group of Japanese there, who were so very happy that I could talk my 20 words of Japanese.



View of the Mountains from Interlaken

Once we were down we headed towards the River, which feeds the two lakes on either side of Interlaken and hence the same. The river gets its water straight from the Alps and hence was sparkling clear. Able to see the bottom of a flowing river was something special. Then we headed to our hotel to freshen up before we headed to an Arabian hotel for a dinner, which was better forgotten.



At the River in Interlaken

We had a comfortable rest in our hotel and prepared ourselves to the most awaited part of our Swiss trip, a visit to the Jungfraujoch

Geneva the Lac Town

Geneva is a very pleasent place to visit. It is situated at the tip of the largest Alpine lake, nestling between the Jura Mountains and the Alpes. The major language used in Geneva is the French. However most establishments are well versed with English.

Geneva is the house to the WHO, the United Nations... among many prominent organizations of the world.

View of the Alps from the Airplane

We landed in Geneva on our flight from Mumbai via Zurich. Its a short flight of about 30 mins from Zurich to Geneva, flying besides the famous Swiss Alpes. Its one of the most breath taking flight journey one could ever have. Geneva hosts a relatively small and quite Airport, The Cointrin Airport. We had to wait for quite a while at the airport for our Hotel cab to pick us up as it turned out to be that we landed at the time when their drivers take a deserved rest for an hour. It was a short drive to the Hotel from the airport and we comfortabaly checked in to our hotel, The Express by Holiday Inn. It was a small and cozy hotel, but not one I would recomend if you are there to visit Geneva on a tour. It served us well as we had to attend some business too, which was near the Hotel.

We headed to the Lac(Lake) Leman to view the Jet d'Eau, the most spectacular view in Geneva. The Jet d'Eau is a fountain the pumps water high up into the air to about 140 meters. Thats amazing. The Lake is filled with hundreads of boats of all types on its shore. As we reached in the evening, most of the cruises were closed for the day. We checked our for the different cruises and decided we would be talking one of them the next day. And as luck would have it, it started raining out there. We headed back to the Geneva Railway Station to take a train back to Contairin to head back to our Hotel.

At the Lac Leman, with Jet d'Eau at the back

Next day after the business meeting we headed to the Lac again, in anticipation of not missing the cruise. We boarded a beautiful cruise which took us really upclose to the Jet d'Eau. We could even experince the mist from the Jet falling on us. It was one of those experince to really cherish and we knew it was just the begining and there were many more to come.

The next day we decided we had to make it to the United Nations for its sheer historic purpose. Somehow it feels good standing along side the UN. We took a bus opposite our hotel to the Nations. After 2 stops we realised we were going on the opposite side to the nations, towards La Hopital. Anyhow we decided we would go and visit the La Hopital too. It turned out to be quite a good ride, with the bus taking us throug interior Geneva, amongst the houses, which not many tourists would usually visit. We sat in the same bus which would evetually take us to the other end of its journey to our initially intended destination, The United Nations. The last guided tour inside the Nations is at 3PM and as we were able to reach there only by 5, we were not previledged to have a birds eye view of the nations.

At the United Nations

We bid good bye to the Nations and next set of in persuit of the WHO. We had to walk quite a distance to eventually find the WHO. We moved around its vast campus and took pictures with whatever we could. Extremely tired we then hoped on to bus which took us back to the Nations. We took one of those most colourfull trams from the Nations to the Lac Leman which was the center point of our Geneva experience. We had heard about the famous flower clock and now we had to see it. We were pretty unfortunate that day not to be able to locate it. However we did narrow it down the next day which also happened to be the Birthday of Your Truely. We had hunted down an Indian restaurant (rather Pakistani)where we had a filling dinner, the first Indian food we laid our hands on after leaving the shores of Mumbai. We headed back to the Hotel, to pack our stuff to headover to Interlaken the next day. Interlaken is where our tour really began away from the work.

At the Flower clock, Lac Leman

Next day we got up early enough and off we went to Interlalen by the 9 AM Geneva Aeroport to Zurich Flugafen Train.