EUROTRIP-SWITZERLAND

SWITZERLAND

19th august

Our train to Zurich  was from Gare de Lyon station, early in the morning, we really didnt feel like bidding good bye to Paris, but at the same time we were excited to know what's in store for us .Our train was a swiss train that runs between the 2 countries. we had heard about random passport checks, but we didnt encounter any of those checks.

We reached Zurich by 11am. Our  hotel was 10 minutes walk from the terminal .Zurich is a the largest city of Switzerland, and its the financial centre of Switzerland, it also houses the Stock Exchange.Its a beautiful city surrounded by mountains on all the sides, and the river Limmat passes from between the city dividing the city into the old and new city.We collected the maps and headed with out heavy bagpacks towards our hotel. 

Unfortunately lot of hotels their have strict policy of check-in check-out times, and had to wait for like 2 hours to get our room, so we had our lunch in the mean time and planned the next two days.

Today the plan was to exlplore the city and tomorrow we are going to Lucerne(one of the famous attractions in Switzerland ) We dont have a lot of days in Switzerland, but we really wanted to get a feel of it, because of all these Bollywood movies we have watched that are shot here,especially DDLJ :)

We started with the old Town, thinking it would be good to have a feel of the culture and the history of the old town. I just loved the midieval houses, narrow lanes, small boutique shops!! The town halls and the clock towers are from even before the Rennaissance period. There is a famous Fondue shop in the heart of Niederdorf in the old city .I had gone crazy taking pictures of the beautiful boutiques, and some funny names..

                          

We relished  the melodic chimes of the clock tower every hour. The St Peters;s church boasts to have the largest clock tower face in Europe. I did try to record the mellifulous music.. There was a small square near by, with a huge tree in the centre of the square, and I loved the site of people reading books in the quite surroundings. (For some reason it felt like India, A huge banyan tree in the centre and people doing their stuff ) 

We then headeed towards the other Romanasque church  Grossmünster, The twin towers of the Grossmünster are regarded as perhaps the most recognized landmark in Zurich.

Later we saw the Fraumunster church . I loved the neaighbourhood of this church with colorful houses, like Burano in Venice. 

We then headed towards the new town, which is more like a financial district and has all the branded shops..
We were meeting Ravish's cousin Jays (Remember the one we met in Paris, she was here from her work, lucky us,got a chance to meet again :)

We went to Hiltl for dinner(The oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world according to the Guiness book )
This place has hundreds of varieties of  food, mixture of all cuisines, and you get a lot of indian options as well.

We had a lovely evening , and then obiously the time spent wasnt enough so then we went to a small cafe that Jayshree recommended. The time passed so quickly that it was time to depart again, in the hope to meet again!!


Next day was Lucerne, a small lovely city , with a thriving tourism industry owing to its status as a gateway to Central Switzerland. We had already booked our package for Mount Rigi,.We took a train to Arth-Goldau, from there took a cog wheel train to Rigi Kulm, The views from the train were to die for.. Slowly and steadily it took us to the summit.Mount Rigi is called the queen of mountains and its 1,798 m high.
It is surrounded by the water of three different water bodies: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz.
The view is just jaw-dropping.It was a little cloudy that day, so there were times, that all we saw was clouds under us.(That view was heavenly ;) , but you definitely need sun and (no clouds to see the real view ).We took the train and then the cruise back to Lucerne.. I enjoyed the view from the cruise as well.. (You just feel that , in the most remote area as well, everything is just perfect, afterall its one of the most developed nations with their Swiss Francs so strong!! )

  

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From the cruise to Lucerne

We explored Lucerne a bit, saw the famous bridge , strolled around the streets and had the best canneloni I have ever tasted.

I think this was one of our longest days, we then took a train back to Zurich, picked up our bags from the station and caught a train  ( (Cant imagine we had travelled so much in one single day ) to Milan.Yes,the next country we are travelling is ITALY!!!  :)