Chur – Zurich – Paris – Sunday 14th April 2024

We left a chilly Chur and caught a train to Zurich – what a scenic trip it was.  We passed some huge lakes and then came in past the Zurich Lake – beautiful!  Finding the place to leave our luggage in Zurich Station which is apparently the biggest and busiest station in Europe proved to be a little more challenging than we thought, but after asking for assistance twice, we found it, and hired a locker for each of our cases.

Off we went on our short walking tour of Zurich.  A few interesting facts that we found in Zurich:

• All men go to church in a black suit with a dark tie and white shirt
• We did not see a single lady heading for church
• Most shops in Zurich do not open on a Sunday

The parts we saw of Zurich were very Swiss – lots of Swiss flags everywhere, typical Swiss architecture – very interesting.  Walking along the river, looking at all the old buildings was great, and when the church bells started ringing from all the surrounding churches, it was a cacophony of sound! We finished our walking tours, and still had some time, so found the Lindt shop – sadly the Lindt Factory was too far for a visit.  However the Lindt shop was a real treat – all sorts of Lindt choccies that we don’t get in SA.  We only bought a choccie to share and a BIG bag to little Lindt chocs.  Very disciplined we were!

At lunchtime we caught our double decker high speed train to Paris.  My word, but these trains moved – they tell you your speed and the fastest we saw was 312km per hour, but it can go as high as 360 km per hour.  It was a pretty route via Basel.

On arrival in Paris we needed to find the Metro and head for Monte Matre where we are staying.  There were stairs everywhere and very few escalators, so we carried our cases uphill and down dale.  We were pooped!  Anyhow, we got to our apartment and followed the instructions we had been sent to get the key out of the key safe.  Only problem was that the key safe is in the back of a postbox so is very dark!  We tried and tried, but could not get this safe to open.  William tried to whats app the owner, but she did not respond.  Eventually we realised that she had given us 1 digit wrong in the code and we got it open.  We followed the rest of the instructions, which ended with “you need to climb the steps to the apartment on the top floor”.  Well, there are 129 worn, narrow, spiral wooden steps to our apartment.  Nowhere was this declared.  We battled to get our suitcase up the stairs, let alone 129 of them.  William carried both part of the way, as I was battling with the weight and being a little height challenged, my huge suitcase was a little too much.  After much heaving and huffing and puffing, we got to our tiny apartment, and both collapsed on our bed to catch our breath.  (We have subsequently checked our booking papers and nowhere was this disclosed!)  The apartment does have a beautiful view of Sacre Coeur – a beautiful church.

Once we had settled in and revived a little we climbed all the way down the steps and walked around Monte Matre.  We did not have the energy to head up the steps to Sacre Couer, as there were many steps, so we walked on the flat, and found the Moulin Rouge, and bought supper just across the road while we waited for it to get a little darker, to see Moulin Rouge by night.

We then wandered home – and climbed our steps and fell into bed.

Chur – Saturday 13th April 2024

When we checked in last night we were given a Chur Guest card – for free!  You don’t get much here for free!

This morning we caught the bus (Public transport is free with our Chur Guest Card) to the Altstadt (Old Town).  We found a coffee shop and we each chose a pastry for breakfast. They looked delicious!  We sat down and I took a lovely bite of my pastry – which turned out to be a roll. It looked far fancier, but it was just a roll!  Oh well, as most of you probably know I enjoy eating dry bread and rolls, so my breakfast was a dry roll!  William’s pastry was very tasty.

We walked around the old town looking at all the buildings – so beautiful.  The oldest church and cathedral weren’t open so we could not go in.  The whole town is pristinely clean – there are flowers on the verges and everything is well kept – very different to Italy.

We walked across from the old town to where the cable car takes you to the top of one of the surrounding mountains.  With our Chur Guest Pass we could get 50% off so we decided to go up.  The ride is in 2 different cables cars.  The first one is a big car that takes you to the first station, where all the mountain bikers start their trails, so we had 15 of us and 12 bicycles in our cable car.  From this station we went up the rest of the mountain in a little cable car – and we climbed and climbed and climbed – for about 20 minutes.  It was a beautiful, clear morning, so visibility was great.  The views were incredible, and the little car didn’t wobble too much!

When we walked outside the cable car station at the top there were patches of snow.  I was in my element!  We carried on walking and then we could some snowy slopes, so I (with William following me like a good husband) was off.  What I didn’t take into account was that the snow is melting so everything was muddy, but we got to the bottom of the slope and stood in the snow.  Then we started walking back to the road and William said “be careful, it is slippery” and boof down I went into the slushy squidgy mud on my bum!  I need not tell you that I was wearing very light coloured pants, so you can guess what I looked like!  Oh well!

What amazed us was how hot it was up there -William was in shorts – yes in the snow – and we were in short sleeves and cooking!  It was about 26 degrees.  It was rather strange.  We had a light lunch at the restaurant at the top of the mountain and then headed down again.  We are so glad that we went up.

We then walked back to our hotel and went to a supermarket – I would say that food there was about 20% more than we pay at home, but I know that converting is not always accurate as you need to take salaries etc into account.  We bought some Swiss Chocolate – we had to as we are in Switzerland after all!

We spent the afternoon putting our feet up and recharging our batteries.

Tonight we had the most expensive KFC we have ever eaten!  Takeaways are very pricey here!

We leave for Zurich and then Paris tomorrow morning.

Good-bye Italy – Hello Switzerland – Friday 12th April 2024

We left Venice by train at 7.18 this morning heading to Milan.  I worked on the train and then finished typing the last blog.  The wi-fi is fantastic on the inter city trains.

We got to Milan and had about 35 minutes before departing for Tirano.  We were not able to reserve seats on the Milan – Tirano trip, so assumed that this was because the train would not be too busy.  How wrong we were!  We were lucky enough to get seats, but there were people standing everywhere! Overloading is not a thing here!

The trip was very scenic with lakes and snow on high peaks.  Although it was still Italy, it looked very Swiss.  We arrived in Tirano at about 13.00 and then had a wait to board the scenic train – the Bernina Express – to Chur.  We found the Bernina Express Office, and I went to information to ask where we would be boarding, and the lady politely told me that due to landslides the train had been cancelled and that we should have been notified by email.  Well, we had received nothing and it would appear that none of the other passengers had either.  Apparently we will be refunded, but let’s wait and see….. She said that we could catch a bus to a certain place, and then catch a train (which turned out to be 2 trains) to Chur, and that our Bernina Express tickets were valid for these trips.  We thanked her and headed off looking for the bus.  Well, what she didn’t mention was that we would be in a normal commuter bus – along with all the other passengers commuting to wherever.  The bus arrived and everyone who should have been on the scenic train, together with all our luggage, got on the bus.  As if this was not bad enough people put their suitcases on their wheels in the middle of the bus, where there is an open space.  We put our suitcases flat.  Well, I need not tell you what happened when we went around the first sharp bend – there were suitcase flying everywhere!  So the men in the bus had to grab suitcases and put them all flat.  As we stopped at various stops, the bus got fuller and fuller and fuller.  At one stop a rather large man got on, and seeing that there were no seats available he sat on the suitcases.  Now, in my suitcase which was near the bottom of the pile were 2 bottles of red wines which we bought for the boys in Italy.  They were well packed, but…..I began to wonder what my clothes would be like soaked in red wine.  I am pleased to report that the wine was still intact when we got to Chur!  And my clothes had not had a soak in red wine!

The bus route was up a very windy, beautiful pass through snow like we have never seen before.  It was exactly like you see Switzerland depicted in books and in movies.  (The pictures were taken in a moving bus through a window, so apologies if they are not too clear.)  We have no idea what we would have seen on the scenic train, and will probably never know, but the views we had were spectacular.  Sadly we did not stop for us to touch it, but so be it.

When we got to Pontresina, we had to get off the bus and wait for a train, which was delayed, but eventually got there.  We all got on, with our luggage, and had to get off 2 stations later, and wait for another train with a 45 minute wait.  The last train bought us to Chur.  Again, the views from the train were breathtaking.  There is no snow on the ground here in Chur, but we can see snow on the mountains.  Some look like the Icing Sugar boxes, and some have a lot more!  By this stage, we were dead dog tired and now needed to find a bus to our hotel, but all information was in German.  Well we managed to get here – my knowledge of German from 2 years in High School and working in Namibia for a short while came in handy.  The hotel is lovely, and we have been given a Chur Guest Card which entitles us to free bus travel and free entry into various places tomorrow, including a cable car ride.

There is a McDonalds next to the hotel, a KFC across the street and a Burger King down the road.  I asked William which he would prefer for supper, and he said “definitely McDonalds – the other 2 are too far!”  So we had McD’s for supper – very expensive McD’s I might add.

It certainly is a day we won’t forget – for 2 reasons – the disappointment of not going on the scenic train and the unforgettable views!