Zurich

Milan-Zurich-Prague

Wednesday 14^th August

As I write this, I am watching Switzerland fly past the window as we make our way to Prague. The sun is setting over the mountains and it is very pretty. Switzerland is very pretty. Everything you’ve heard about or read about “the chocolate box” Switzerland is true!

We have a sleeping cabin, which I thought had shower and toilet, but no, just the two bunks and a wash basin. There is no Dining Car on this train either, and it’s just as well we had a snack before we left Zurich. In think it will be an interesting night.

We had a very busy day, leaving Milan, and here’s a travel tip, in Italy, go first class if your journey is going to be longer than 30 minutes. We had booked our seats, which is also a great idea. The luggage racks in this train were not deep enough to take anything larger than a back pack, consequently, there were suitcases all over the place, as well as people who had missed previous trains, or their trains were late, or whatever. There were scenes of chaos, and very loud  people yelling at each other, the conductor (who disappeared fairly quickly), on their phones, and here we were thinking it would be a lovely and relaxing journey though the Alps.

It got better as passengers got off, but we decided that 1^st class would have been better this time.

The scenery all the way was spectacular. Lake Lugano, The Alps, Lake Lucerne, Swiss farms, all captured in the photos. A beautiful view would emerge and we would try to get it, and then a tunnel, or a big tree, or some pylons would get in the way, so it became a bit of an ongoing challenge to try and get the good pics. After four hours or so, we arrived in Zurich. We had about three and a half hours before we board the train to Prague, so we put the luggage in storage, got a map of the city, we included a walk around the main sights.

The economic crisis appears to have avoided Zurich, or it is well on the way to recovery.  There are fabulous high end fashion shops, equalling any that were in Milan, several chocolate shops, hundreds of watch shops, and jewellery stores, and lots of arty shops selling local crafts and artisans work.

Some beautiful old churches, which have huge clocks, one has the largest clock face in all Europe. The churches in Zurich are very subdued in decoration, such a change from the OTT of Italian churches. A river or maybe it is a canal runs through the centre, dividing the Old Town from the new. The old town has winding medieval streets and houses, and lots of cafes, bars, restaurants and arty shops.

Zurich sits on Lake Lucerne and is very pretty place. We enjoyed the stopover. It was a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.