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Zug, Switzerland

Five trains and 9 hrs later we are in expensive Zermatt, Switzerland. We were stung again by the train reservation costs. Four of the train’s reservation costs were $60. We were told by the ticket office that we didn’t need a train reservation for the 5th train to Zermatt. This was actually incorrect as it isn’t included on the Eurail ticket even though it shows up on the Eurail website as any other train. (The fine print hey!) So we forked out $130 to the train conductor. So yes, thats $200 for 1 day on a train pass that we’d already paid $3000 for. However, on a positive note, we later found out that the train to Zermatt is actually one of the most scenic routes in Europe. Also the village of Zermatt is located in a pine tree covered mountain range and can only be accessed by that train. As it’s not accessible by car there are obviously no cars. It has a couple of tiny, electric vehicles to cater for moving people and goods. Most of the buildings are wooden chalets with slate roofs to keep the snow off. This picturesque village even has a blue-grey coloured stream running mountain water though the village. The whole village smells of fireplaces and crisp snow air. When you think of what a mountain village in the Swiss alps should be like, this is it.
All year around people ski Zermatt’s Matterhorn mountain /glacier which is 14,690 ft high. It’s the end of summer, a chilly 10 degrees, and people are here for snowboarding, trekking, mountain biking and ice climbing. Although we didn’t take Europe’s highest cable car up the Matterhorn itself ($110 per person), we appreciated its beauty from a distance. Unfortunately, many graves from the people who haven’t made the trek up lay below as a solemn reminder of the dangers.

Switzerland, in many ways, is like a big South Island but 5 times the price, so for us it’ll be a country of jam sandwiches for every meal – except one. We had to try the famous Swiss cheese fondu. It’s eaten as a main meal for two not a dessert, as it should be for $55! But it sure was tasty. Three swiss cheeses mixed with white wine are used as the sauce to dip bread and potatoes in. The closer you get to the bottom of the pot the stronger the wine tastes. I’ll definitely be trying that when we get home. So far it’s Spanish tapas with Moroccan tea and Swiss cheese fondu! Even if you don’t buy anything in this town and just window shop you can tell the type of people who holiday here by the number of Rolex shops in the tiny Main Street. Hundreds of watches valued between $10,000-$60,000 are displayed in the windows of closed shops. The watches over that and up to $110,000 are taken down at night times. I’ll giggle now when walking past a Michael Hill Jeweller shop who take their $50 stuff out of the windows at night. I have also never seen so many Swiss Army knife varieties. Most shops sell the full range, 151 varieties. We bought one here as well – free engraving! And yes it’s true, here they are only called ‘army knives’.

After three more trains and three more hours, we arrived at Lucerne. Lucerne is one of the towns I remember visiting when our family was in Europe in 1999. I wanted to take Dave up Mt Pilatus, the journey I’d once taken. We took the gondola from the bottom to 4,649ft then the aerial cableway for the final leg until we reached the top at 7,000ft. Time restricted us again, so we were only up there about 10 minutes before taking the ‘worlds steepest cogwheel railway’ down the mountain with a gradient of 48%! The railway is placed on the cliff face and twines through the mountain tunnels. From the bottom we took the 2hour boat trip along the shores of the emerald Lake Lucerne before hitting the beautiful township. It’s a lovely little town with fantastic wooden foot bridges that join the old town with the new. Considering that we arrived at 6pm last night and left for Zug at lunch time the following day, I’m pretty impressed with how much we jammed into a short period time. With only 4 nights in Switzerland we are always on the move. It is such a stunning country. The only thing I could criticise about it is it church bells. In most countries they go off for a minute or so. Not here, at least 5 mins each time, every 15 minutes.

I can count on a few fingers how many grumpy days we (meaning me) have had in the last 4 months. This morning was one of them. The one day per town / country, lack of sleep from the hostels, not enough food or nutritional food because of lack of money and being ill really takes its toll every now and again. I can’t describe how weird it is when those times are randomly placed just before you meet up with someone who turns it all around. We were greeted at Zug train station by the welcoming arms of my cousin Laurence and his beautiful partner Francesca. We are more than thankful to be staying with family for the next two nights. They even invited us out to a 35th birthday with them. Similar to the experience in Bordeaux, it’s nice to be dressed up and having a break from being a traveller. It only took a few hours in their company to feel reenergised and continue along our journey.
What we should be doing today is having a day to rest but we felt it was more important to catch the train to Zurich for the day. Switzerland has no Sunday trading so it probably wasn’t the best of days to visit. Zurich was dead quiet, very grey and cold. A beautiful city all the same. Nothing better to warm the cockles than Swiss hot chocolate and Swiss apple strudel with Swiss Movenpic ice cream.
To end our fantastic stay with Laurence and Francesca we (Dave) cooked our (Dave’s) speciality dish, ‘no butter, butter chicken’. Good wine, relaxing candles, smooth sounds of Ray Charles and great company with family ended one of the best weekends to date and reenergised us for the pilgrimage to Octoberfest….

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