Zurich

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The train ride from Munich into Zurich was another comfortable and pleasent trip typical of all our experiences on German trains. However, when we went to eat at the on-board dining car we found the prices of the meals to be unusually expensive which was a sign of things to come in Switzerland.

When we went to prebook our accommodation for Zurich we found everything to be very expenisve. Oddly we found there to be no cheaper hostel type places in the city centre, only luxury hotels. This may have something to do with Zurich being a major financial centre rather than a destination for budget travellers. Anyhow, eventually we settled for a cheapish hotel (Hotel Ibis) located about 20km from the city centre opposite a train station at Baar. Costs were fairly easy to work out in Switzerland as the 100 Swiss Francs was around 99 AUD.

When we arrived at Zurich Station (another large and impressive place) we withdrew some Francs and enquired at the information counter which local trains we would need to take to get to Baar. In 10 seconds he had printed out a sheet for us with all the times and platform numbers on it. Very impressive! It turned out we were to catch an express train to a place called Zug and then about 8 minutes later we were to catch another train a short distance back to Baar.

We went to the appropriate platform and looked through some timetables we picked up as we waited for the train. As we waited a guy came up to us and asked if he could help us. We said we thought we were OK but showed him where we were going. As we waited there was a message that our train was delayed a short time which may result in us missing our connection which would then make it faster to catch the next train 30 minutes later which went directly to Baar. Our new acquaintance was very helpful. He had one of those small organiser things that connects to the internet and he used the same program as the train attendant at the information desk to check our connections. He even tried to ring train information on his mobile phone to see if our connecting train would wait as our first train was slightly late. We were really impressed with this guy who ended up telling us a number of further backup options we could take to get to Baar.

Our hotel ended up being right opposite the station and we got there with little difficulty. Our Eurail pass was valid for the suburban S-Bahn system in Zurich which was also really convenient. Interestingly because Baar is a reasonable distance out of Zurich, the station is more frequently served by the suburban train system of the nearby town of Lucern (which is a similar distance away as Zurich) as well as express intercity trains. Lucern has a population of only about 50,000 people which is smaller than Ballarat and Bendigo yet it has its own suburban rail system which overlaps with the system for Zurich. Ross found this very impressive.

The next day we caught various suburban trains and found our way back to Zurich where we went for a walk through the old town area and inspected a number of catherdrals. We even stumbled across an organ recital. Zurich is located next to a large lake and for something different we caught a water taxi which took us out for a short distance across the lake. This turned out also to be covered under our Eurail pass for free. Unlike Munich the weather in Zurich was perfect, fine and sunny, and we had no problems walking around.

Later we took an S-Bahn train up a big hill which overlooks Zurich where we went for a walk through a park area called "Planet Weg" As you go along the walk you pass signs which display each of the planets listed in our solar system. The signs are located in proportion to their distance from the sun so the ones in the smaller orbits are located not very far apart but the ones located further out are located a long distance apart. From Planet Weg we caught a cable car back down the mountain and returned to Zurich by the S-Bahn.

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