Blogs from Switzerland, Europe

Today we start the long journey home. We got up at 7:00 am our time which is 1:00 am home time. We fly out at 1:35 pm Switzerland time (7:35am USA). It’s a 9 hour flight scheduled to land at 4:30pm USA (10:30pm Swiss). We then have customs, new security, and fly out of JFK at 8:15 pm USA (1:15am Swiss). We land in Pittsburgh at 10:15 USA (4:15 am Swiss). Then we pick up bags and a rental car and drive home fir 2 hours. We’ll get home about 1:00am USA (7:00 am Swiss). So you see it’s a 24 hour trip home! I hope to sleep some in the long flight but we shall see! We get to the airport and find out that the Delta counter doesn’t open until 10:30…..3 hours before our ... read more

So today we fly out to Switzerland to join another EF GoAhead tour. We will be traveling through Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. We had to be at the Zurich airport before noon to catch a transfer to our hotel in the alps. So we spent the night at the Hilton Garden Inn at Heathrow Airport since it is a short 10 minute walk to Terminal 2, Our flight out was for 6 am (its the only one I could find to get us there on time). Everything I read about Heathrow said to be there 3 hours before your flight. I know, from experience, that Heathrow can be crazy in the early morning. I set my alarm and set up a wake up call for 2 am so wed have an hour ... read more

Leaving the campground in Val Veni after three nights in my tent, I rejoined the Tour du Mont Blanc where I had left it two days earlier, one hour down the road in the town of Courmayeur. But having dropped down into the bed of the Val d'Aosta (into which both the Val Veni and Italian Val Ferret flow) there was only one direction the trail could go: up. At first the gradient was gentle as the route followed a sealed road up a side-valley, but after leaving the road and heading up onto the forested flanks of Monte de la Saxe the steepness immediately ratcheted up a couple of notches. Yet fresh from a rest day I was equal to the task, managing to climb the 600m from the road-end to Rifugio Bertone in just ... read more

I finally got over the Gotthard Pass this afternoon. It was tough going in places, but I managed most of it. Amazingly at one point I managed to pass three cars and a horse driven carriage! I was going slightly faster than the carriage and the drivers were biding their time to make their move. As they waited I sneaked past them on the inside. They graciously left enough space for me. I think I was doing a speedy 8 or 9 kilometres per hour at the time. When I was behind the coach I had to bide my time as well. I didn't think I could keep up a sustained enough burst of speed to pass on the outside. A few yards later I made my move when the road on the inside widened to ... read more

My mum and I had booked a journey on panoramic trains in Switzerland. We had started our trip in Basel, travelled to Chur, from there to St. Moritz on Glacier Express, and had spent a (rainy) day in St. Moritz. From there, we had caught Bernina Express to Tirano, travelled to Lugano by bus, and spent a day in Lugano. On Wednesday morning (30thof August), the last leg of our journey was to start. We walked to the train station from our hotel and caught the Gotthard Panorama Express from there. The train goes all the way up Gotthard Pass and ends in Flüelen on Vierwaldstätter See. Our route took us through Bellinzona, the capital of the canton Ticino with its castles. Then we went across fascinating viaducts and through tunnels and ultimately entered the Gotthard ... read more