Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 4

Mountains, Lakes and Home

The Wednesday featured a day out in the Bernese Oberland in the Great Rail Journeys itinerary, including the ascent to Jungfraujoch using the new Eiger Express cable car from the edge of Grindelwald to an intermediate station part of the way up the Eiger. We had been to Jungfraujoch before and although we enjoyed it very much we felt that on this occasion our time would be better spent exploring other places in the local area rather than repeating that visit. It's not that we don't like seeing the same things twice, but the particular things that we enjoyed at Jungfraujoch did not seem worthwhile compared with the idea of exploring Grindelwald and Wengen (both of which we had also seen before!) and riding more trains rather than the cable car. 

Those going on the full excursion were warned to take warm clothing, even though the weather at Interlaken was hot and sunny when we walked with them to Interlaken Ost railway station. We did take some warm clothing, as we were heading to broadly the same area, but not intending to climb quite so high. We decided to travel with the party as far as Grindelwald Terminal, where the rest of them would be taking the cable car, then we would walk into Grindelwald centre, have coffee and then take a train via Kleine Scheidegg to Wengen for lunch, moving on to Lauterbrunnen where we would rejoin the party to travel together back to Interlaken. We had the train timings for the party and could easily fit our schedule into it, meaning that our travel to Grindelwald and from Lauterbrunnen was covered by the rail pass we had been issued - a pass that also gave us half-fares on the section between which we were paying-for ourselves.

The Swiss are always developing their railways. Not only did our train stop at the new station at Grindelwald Terminal to connect with the Eiger Express cable car, but also at an earlier station on the edge of Interlaken that serves the commercial area around the airfield. Our walk from the rail station into the centre of Grindelwald was warm and sunny and very pleasant. Although the station we had left was called "Terminal" it was not the end of the line! It was the terminal of the cable car system, which had been under construction last time we were here. The actual terminus in the centre of Grindelwald was being improved to provide better facilities for the town itself and so was a bit of a building site. Nearby was the hotel where we had stayed on our last visit so we strolled over to have a quick look and reminisce,  and spotting a waiter setting out some outdoor tables we decided to have our coffee there - something we had never done when we were staying there. 

Then we had a little walk around the shops and went to buy our tickets. There was some uncertainty about whether we needed to pay for the bit between Kleine Scheidegg and Lauterbrunnen which may or may not have been covered by our GRJ rail pass, but as we were travelling alone we were asked to pay and did so, quite contentedly. By the way, if you think rail fares in the UK are expensive, even at half-fare these little Swiss mountain railways are very expensive, but, then, think of the engineering they have to pay for! Anyway, we had a great ride. I had forgotten just how steep these cog railways in this part of the country can be until the train took a steep dive down the hillside to the "downhill" part of Grindelwald where it changed direction and then climbed steeply back up the other side to begin the ascent to the north face of the Eiger.

As the train climbed so we began to glimpse snow from the train windows (this is June, remember!) and by the time we descended from the train at Kleine Scheidegg there was a lot of snow around, although not at the station. Now it was cold, though, and we wore such clothing as we had brought and made sure we stood in the sunshine. The rest of the party would be up at the Jungfraujoch now, with the icicles and the ice palace and the view down to the glaciers. And the chocolate and watch shops! There is nothing much at Kleine Scheidegg except the train up inside the Eiger to Jungfraujoch, and it is not as busy as it used to be now that a lot of the traffic goes by the cable car to the next station rather than coming here. We joined the next train down to Wengen as soon as it was ready and made our way there. Now the conductor on this train was English and he was pretty sure that we had not needed to pay for this stretch of the journey because it was covered by our passes, so when we arrived at Wengen we spent a few minutes at the ticket office raising the matter and indeed were refunded that part of the fare ... very good. And off we went for a walk around Wengen, visited once before, ten years ago in winter. Now it was warm and sunny and there was no snow down here and we found a very nice traditional little restaurant for a bread and soup lunch, ideal.

And so to the train again to its terminus at Lauterbrunnen where we awaited the one after ours, which we were able to watch winding its way down the hillside opposite the village, on which the rest of our party were travelling ... or, rather, they should have been travelling. Every tour manager's nightmare had ben visited on our tour manager Richard when one of the party had failed to catch the train back down from Jungfraujoch, so the party was one short when they arrived. These days with mobile telephones it is much easier to sort out this sort of thing than it once was, and the missing person was easily able to follow down on a later train. 

Back at Interlaken Ost we walked back to the hotel and changed for dinner. This night we were to dine in the restaurant at the very top of the tower; we assumed that there were few enough diners for only one restaurant to be needed so they fitted us all in on the top floor. I think some of those who had booked it for following day, when we had to make our own dinner arrangements, were a little put out that we were all getting that view anyway! Another great meal, with an amazing view. At one point there came rain, and then, looking along the valley back towards the Jungfrau there was the most fantastic rainbow right over the mountain. I think this hotel must have been put on this site specifically to take advantage of the view up the valley to the Jungfrau, and for us that evening it really was very special.

Not sure why this guy is looking at me this way ...

Thursday was an entirely free day and we had decided long ago that on this day we should trip out to Meiringen to visit the Reichenbach Falls made famous by the (apparent!) death of Sherlock Holmes with Moriarty in what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had intended to be the last of his series of Holmes novels. This we did, after having a rather later start than on the last few days, but we managed to pack a few more bits in as well ...

We began again with a walk to Interlaken Ost railway station from where we bought our half-price train tickets and caught a train direct to Meiringen: this took us along the north shore of Lake Brienz and through the lakeside town of that name which we had visited on a previous trip. It was a fantastic scenic ride. At Meiringen we strolled into the town centre and kept walking until we came to funicular station that would take us to the Reichenbach Falls, a little way out of town. It was a great walk, but we could have done most of the trip on a little local train that goes that way. Before ascending to the Falls we had coffee at a nearby café which was actually the canteen of a hospital but open to the public. We were able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. By then we had decided that after the Falls we would like to visit the nearby Aareschlucht Gorge, which it was possible to visit using the aforesaid local railway, and there happened to be a combined ticket available for the two attractions - and in Switzerland you take every opportunity to save money. The ride up to the Falls was fun - funicular railways always are, with their ever-changing view of the world below - and arrival was in a mist of spray. The waterfall is a spectacle but I think not such a spectacle as it would have been in Conan Doyle's day, with various alterations - and safety features - which mean that even if you could get to the edge to plunge over it you would probably survive now! 

Back down we walked to the station on the Inertkirchen Railway which would take us to the start of the Aareschlucht Gorge. Access to the gorge is at either end, with a railway station not far away from each end: we opted to travel to the far, eastern, end of the gorge and walk back through it to take a train back to Meiringen from the western end. The day continued sunny and we had a fantastic adventure, making up the itinerary as we went along, with local advice and the ever-available information from the internet. Apple Maps on our iPhones provided us with the train times and we were soon on a train to the far end of the Aareschlucht Gorge, where the station was actually inside a tunnel: I would have photographed the train there but the driver asked me to leave the platform because the signal would not clear to start the train while the platform was occupied! Not wanting to be the reason for a delay to a Swiss train, we rapidly left the station and the door slid shut behind us. Outside was a small group of people awaiting a train in the other direction but who would not be able to go onto the platform until the train was there and the door opened for them. If the London Underground worked that way it would slow things down quite a bit! So, a nice bit of uphill walk to where the gorge started, and a brief pause for an ice-cream to recover from the uphill walk in the hot sun, and then we paid our admission fee and started through the wonderful scenery of the Aareschlucht Gorge.

Photographs on a website cannot do justice to this amazing natural wonder: you simply have to go and see it for yourself. In places the river is wide: in some other places you can reach out and touch the rock on the opposite side! Here and there there are waterfalls and rapids, and occasionally you have to walk through rock tunnels, although much of the way you're on a walkway cantilevered out from the rock face a few metres above the water. It is all safe and easy, with some care, and there is much interpretative information on display boards as you go through. As we emerged the other end there was a gift shop and after browsing there we walked to the station to take our train back to Meiringen, this time from a station in the open sunshine. It was a trip of just a few moments and then we were able to join our train from Meiringen back to Interlaken Ost where we added just one more adventure to the day's itinerary: if there was not too much of a queue we would take a funicular ride up to Harder Kulm, the conical peak that overlooks Interlaken town centre ...

We arrived at Ost station and walked along to the river bridge and level crossing which took us to the funicular terminal and sure enough there was just a very short queue, so we joined it and bought tickets for the ascent. This was a longer trip than the one to the Reichenbach Fall; indeed it may well be the longest funicular I have ever ridden, and the unfolding views of a town we had begun to know were just stunning.

Like all these tourist railways up mountains there were viewpoints and a restaurant at the top. We spent some while taking in the views and then stopped for a beer, no more, at the restaurant outside bar. We could look down on our high-rise hotel, along the valley to the Jungfrau in the distance, and we could see the trains, like small-scale model trains, in both Interlaken stations. Both lakes were in view, and both boat terminals where the lake cruises operated: we had arrived in Interlaken on a boat on Lake Brienz on a previous holiday, and were due to take a boat from here on Lake Thun the following day.

Back down in the town we wandered along to a shop where we had seen drinking glasses with their bottoms moulded in the shape of alpine mountains and thought these would be great souvenirs of our holiday, so we popped in and bought one depicting the Matterhorn, which was a feature of our first alpine holiday, and the Jungfrau, a feature of this one. 

Then it was back to the hotel and dinner at the top floor restaurant, this time at our own expense from the full menu. There we met a few others from the Great Rail Journeys group who, like us, thought it would be hard to find a better location.

The hot, sunny weather did not last, and the following morning saw us setting off by bus in light rain to see the historic architecture of Bönigen, a very old place now a suburb of Interlaken but clearly its historic origin. There are many old, traditional Swiss timber building in its narrow streets, so much so that an architectural trail has been created for visitors. In the steady rain we followed this trail and did see all of the buildings, mostly houses, but our map got wetter and wetter and it was hard to take photographs, but I hope you'll enjoy the few I have put together here. Again, Bönigen is well worth a visit if you are in Interlaken with time to spare, and again, for us Apple Maps delivered on the bus timetable. We just managed to fit in our soggy tour of Bönigen in time to meet the rest of the group for the afternoon cruise on Lake Thun, included in our Great Rail Journeys tour.

Bönigen

By the time we left for Interlaken West station for our boat the rain had almost stopped, and by the time we boarded and the boat slipped away from the quayside (astern!) it was dry. Once clear of the river, the boat turned and cruised along the lake to Thun, where we would have a good couple of hours before taking a train back to Interlaken.

On the cruise we bought a glass of wine from the bar and enjoyed watching the scenery slip by - including, while gong astern along the river, the receding Harder Kulm from where we had looked down the previous evening. Some of the party had a light meal aboard, but we contented ourselves with a snack on the waterside in Thun. 

I had been advised by another railway modeller that there was a department store in Thun with a decent model railway department and we sought it out and there purchased a station kit I had long wanted and did not expect otherwise to be able to find: Swiss model railway equipment is fairly sparsely available in the UK. I was, though, beginning to wonder about the capacity of my luggage going home ...

Dinner at Interlaken was an included meal back in the downstairs restaurant and then we began our packing ready for the morning:it was time to think about getting home, a long journey all in one day.

We checked out and walked all together to Interlaken West and there joined a Regional train to Spiez, unfortunately already rather well-filled with people with a lot of luggage, so we were standing in the vestibule with ours. It was only a short trip, though, this leg, and the view of the lake was as good as ever. 

At Spiez we joined an Intercity train to Basel, again in Second Class but this was a duplex and we managed to bag some great seats on the top deck with some really good views. We had a little time to buy lunch at Basel before travelling First Class on the TGV to Paris, being taken by coach across to the Gare du Nord for the Eurostar train to London, travelling in Standard Premier with a light meal with wine as usual. 

We were in the very front of the London train which was great because we were able to leave quickly and make our way over to Kings Cross to get the last fast train of the day to Peterborough, again with a light meal, from where we needed a taxi to our home in Stamford, being too late for a train. On the way to Peterborough we downloaded an app for a Peterborough taxi company which had been recommended by a family member, and with that we were able to book and pay for the taxi (technically a private hire car) which was then waiting for us in the pick-up area at the station. It worked brilliantly: no need to have enough cash to pay a black cab, and no fear of a huge bill if the journey is delayed. We'll use that again we need it.

We had said farewell to our brilliant tour manager and to all our travelling companions while we were on the Eurostar train, and so had been ready for that dash to Kings Cross, but could not help wondering, as did some others, whether an earlier start from Interlaken might have got us back at an early enough hour not to have that rush back home. Some people were staying a night in London because they lived too far away to travel home that night. Still, that did not detract from what had been another really great holiday. We had seen much that was new, and seen again some old haunts. Some things had been a real adventure, some relaxing, all of it good. The weather could have been better at times, but at other times it had been absolutely perfect. We are already looking forward to our next foreign adventure ... and that story will be told soon!

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 3

The Golden Pass Express and Interlaken

We left our luggage outside our room as requested on the next morning and went for breakfast, then after collecting our hand luggage we checked out and made for the station along with everyone else, to catch the same train to Montreux as on the previous day. I had taken the precaution of settling our extras bill the previous evening so that we could get away smoothly this morning. And so the centre-piece of this train tour was about to begin, the journey on the Golden Pass Express from Montreux to Interlaken.

The station at Montreux, which we had seen on previous days out, looked very much the part with potted palms on the platform, but the weather could have been drier. And sunnier. The train was waiting at the platform when we arrived from Lausanne, and our tour manager Richard had a group ticket and allocated our seats in a First Class carriage, which was spacious, comfortable and was equipped with panoramic windows, like the Glacier Express we have used before. This train was only about a year old, the new through service having begun the previous season.

Soon the train moved away, on time, from Montreux station and immediately began to climb away from the town and the lake shore. The railway line wound its way up the hillside until we found ourselves looking a long way down to the lake, first on one side and then on the other. We were scheduled to have a light meal of local foods on this journey, and sure enough, before much time had passed the table was set and the sommelier made his way through the carriage to pour the Champagne to accompany our snack. 

Soon the platters of local cheeses and cold meats arrived, with each pair of passengers having a little bag containing the napkin, cutlery and a bread roll. It was all jolly good, and sitting there sipping Champagne while enjoying the scenery and nibbling the local produce was just a wonderful element to our holiday. I'd recommend this to anyone: I have no idea whether it had been booked specially by Great Rail Journeys or whether it is standard fare for First Class ticket-holders, or whether anyone can pay for it as an optional extra, but however you do it, it made for a really great journey.

There were several intermediate stops along the way, and at Zweisimmen the train stopped for an extended period for a change of crew as we were handed over from one train company to another. At one time a change of train was necessary here as the two companies use different track gauges, but the new Golden Pass Express carriages have gauge-changing bogies and the same train can run through on the two different types of track. It is not necessary to leave the train during this process, but, of course, those interested in the technical aspects tore themselves away from the comfort of the carriage to note from the platform the changed bogies before rejoining the train for the rest of the journey to Interlaken!

The journey onward to Interlaken took us through Spiez and alongside a good part of Lake Thun. We had travelled from Spiez to Interlaken before but it was no less enjoyable this time around to look out across the lake and enjoy the last part of this scenic ride into the station at Interlaken West where our train terminated and our rail trip for the day came to an end. Our luggage having been taken separately we walked light to our hotel, the Metropole, in the centre of Interlaken. It had been described as the tallest building in the town, and it certainly dominated the skyline from the direction of West station. Tallest it was, but prettiest it wasn't, being a grey concrete edifice attractive only from the front, a view not seen while walking along the main street. We arrived before our luggage and just as check in had become possible and after a pause to receive our room keys and instructions we went to find our room for the rest of the holiday, high up in the tower overlooking the town's playing fields and across to the valley beyond with the great bulk of the Jungfrau mountain dominating the distant scene. We had paid a little more for a superior room and it was worth every penny: spacious, a balcony, a superb view, lots and lots of sockets for recharging our devices. 

While we awaited our luggage we went for a stroll into the town. I had heard from one of the other passengers on the trip that there was a good model shop in the town and that we had in fact passed it on our way from the railway station. I soon understood how we had come to pass it without seeing it: it was on an upstairs floor above another shop and was only visible from the main street the its "A" board was out during opening hours, but it had been closed for munch when we walked by. However, we went in, now joined by two others, and soon by yet another. I don't think I have ever before been on a Great Rail Journeys holiday where I have met other railway enthusiasts, even less people who are actually building Swiss model railways, but here there was quite a handful of us. I did not actually need a lot for my own layout, having bought almost all I need and simply needing the time to get it put together, but I did buy some little people and a Swiss station clock and Alison bought an Advent calendar which had a HO scale figure beg=hind each window, even blagging a price reduction because it was clearly old stock from last Advent ... so I look forward to the population explosion on my model railway this December!

Returning to the hotel we happened to meet a porter who had just received everyone's suitcases and was sorting through them, so we went to him and took away our own to take them to our room. The express lifts at this hotel were among the best we have ever encountered (I suppose, being a tower block it need good lifts because not many people would cope with the stairs).

Dinner that evening was in a very pleasant dining room on the first floor, where we had been informed breakfast would also be served the next morning. There was another restaurant high up on the top floor with wonderful views out across the town and the mountains, and some people booked their dinner there for the free evening which was to come in a couple of days' time. We left our dinner that evening to chance; we do like living on the edge (well, actually we just didn't want to be tied to coming here when we might find something else).

And so to bed. In a sense we had done very little, but we had enjoyed a spectacular train ride and had acquired some interesting models (how interesting was yet to be revealed in 25 instances!) and moved into a fabulous room. The weather could have been a bit better (it was not bad, just a bit murky at times and showery at times), but as it happened, we soon discovered that warm sunshine was to return the following day for a great day out. And for the day after that, too. This was becoming a really good summer holiday.

Out to Lunch, by Train

Special Birthday Treat: Train Ride and a splendid French Restaurant 

As usual I had bought my wife's birthday presents well in advance: one she asked for and a small one as a surprise extra, and as they day drew near I twigged that we had nothing in the diary for the whole day, and as it drew nearer it looked like to was going to be a lovely warm, sunny day. Going our for a meal would be an obvious treat, but it would be good to make it an adventure and I knew exactly where to go ...

This is just the bread and butter on the side ...

There is an excellent French restaurant in Bury St Edmunds, La Maison Bleue. We had been there once before and thoroughly enjoyed it and I knew she wanted to return and I thought that now would be the time, so I booked the table on their website and then our booked train tickets. New trains had been introduced on the Greater Anglia service to Bury St Edmunds from Peterborough since we had last travelled this way, so it would be interesting to experience these trains. The weather forecast for the day was very hot and sunny: it started off only as very warm and a little cloudy when we boarded our first train at Stamford and changed at Peterborough, but by the time we arrived at Bury St Edmunds it was hot. As we were going to a special restaurant for a special meal we both wanted to dress, and this gave me a chance to use linen suit that I had bought five years earlier and hardly ever used - if it's hot enough for a linen suit it's usually hot enough for shorts - and I have certainly not used it again this summer yet!

I had allowed plenty of slack times there was no rush on the day and we could take the whole day easy, even if there were delays, which there were not: all four of our trains ran to time.

So, the new trains: these were three passenger coaches with a cab each end, all fairly normal, but instead of motors beneath all the floors like the train on our local route through Stamford, there is a sort of short locomotive between two of the coaches, with a corridor through it, making the passenger compartments much quieter and smoother (and presumably allowing a relatively simple change of traction if necessary at some point, but I am not an expert). The seats were comfortable and awards the end of some coaches the seats were on raised platforms above the wheels whereas in the middle of the coaches they were lower, allowing for better accessibility for the mobility-impaired. For us, the raised seats gave us a decent view from the large windows, and we had a really great ride. The section as far as Ely we know quite well, but after that we have only been that way a couple of other times.

The area around the station at Bury St Edmunds has seen a lot of building work since we were last there and it is much more attractive as a first impression of the city, and we made our way up through the streets to the city centre which was bustling with a market as well as many good shops and not as many closed shops as some places. We had time for some browsing and just as we were thinking that a drink before our lunch would be a good idea, The Nutshell came into view, the country's smallest pub, which had some very decent beer (although the birthday girl went for prosecco on this occasion) and outside tables under the shade of trees in the street - very continental.

After our drink it was time to make our way to the restaurant and it did not disappoint. They had taken in my message about needing a corner tablet help with hearing difficulties and there was a "happy birthday" message on the birthday girl's petit fours with which the meal ended. This is the only restaurant we have come across in England where we could buy Swiss wine (and even they only had one this time), so that was a necessary part of the decision-making when browsing the menu! The waiting staff here are attentive and the food and drink excellent, and although it was lunchtime on a very ordinary weekday, the place soon filled up, so I was glad we had gone for a fairly early reservation.

After the meal there was time for a bit of a stroll back though the city before making our way to the station, and it was now becoming very hot and very sunny! We visited the cathedral gift shop and stocked up on cards for friends' forthcoming birthdays, and one or two air-conditioned ladies' clothes shops where we bought nothing but enjoyed the cool air! And so, back to the station, staying in the shade where we could, almost like being in, say, Italy or the French Riviera, and as I type this on a cool day with the rain falling it is hard to believe that the weather we had that day really did happen!

The linen suit and linen shirt stood up well to the test, as did the air-conditioning on the trains home. It had ben a really great day out, the train rides through some great scenery looking ts best in the summer sunshine after the wet spring, the drink under the trees, the French lunch, and most important of all the birthday girl enjoyed it all! Wins all round.

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 2

The Mont Blanc Express to Chamonix

Monday morning dawned dull and damp but with the promise of some sunshine later. It was to be one of the more exciting days of the Great Rail Journeys itinerary for this holiday, the train into France to Chamonix Mont Blanc, our first mountain railway of the tour. Because of our base being in Lausanne rather than Montreux we had a slightly longer trip to get to Martigny where our train ride into the Alps was to begin. It was drizzling at Martigny as we left the main line train which had taken us there and walked to the platform where our narrow-gauge mountain railway train would depart. These were short trains and part of a coach had been reserved for our party. We were shown by a railway official where to board to ensure that we were in the right place for our seats.

The Mont Blanc Express is not what you think of as an express train! It is not even just one train, for it is necessary change trains part-way through the journey. The scenery is amazing, though, and the train starts to climb a few moments after leaving the station. 

Now we have travelled on many an international train, high-speed inter-city expresses like the Eurostar and the TGV Lyria on which we arrived in Geneva, the little branch-line train from Besançon into Le Locle and, for example, the Centovalli line between Switzerland and Italy, but the Mont Blanc Express is the only one we've used where a change of train is needed at the border: at the first station in France we left our train and crossed the platform to join an apparently identical one which took us the rest of the way to Chamonix. Another interesting feature about this route was that at a station part of the way between the border and Chamonix  the overhead electrical line ended and the train's pantograph was lowered, with electrical pick-up being from a third rail conductor. It is just like the procedure at Farringdon in London where Thameslink trains transfer from the overhead to third rail and vice-versa, but you do have to wonder why it is done here for just a few short kilometres of third-rail running, especially where deep snow is regularly expected!

We had a few hours to explore Chamonix and began with a trip to the tourist information office for a map. The drizzle had stopped by now but the day remained cloudy with occasional sunshine, but a trip up to the mountain tops would have been disappointing with all the cloud cover, so we opted to stay in the town, beginning with coffee! We had an interesting stroll around the town, France but not very different from Switzerland; indeed you would never know from the domestic architecture where the border is when you cross it on the Mont Blanc Express. Although we opted not to travel any higher in view of the cloud cover, we did go and look at a cable car station and saw that it had a healthy queue of potential passengers, so there were plenty of people who did decide to go up higher. We returned for lunch to the café we had visited earlier and enjoyed the advertised croques monsieur.  There was sunshine at times and the clouds shifted, revealing glimpses of the mountains that we knew were surrounding us. Chamonix was the venue for the first Winter Olympic games and athletes from the town formed the French team. There was a fascinating display of advertising posters for the Winter Olympics from the first time until the present.

We made our way back to the railway station to join the rest of the party and take the train back down to Martigny, changing trains just before the border, where we almost had an unplanned adventure: everyone piled off the train from Chamonix and crossed the platform to a waiting train, but no, apparently this was not our train but the next one back to Chamonix; why they had such a complex operation for a simple branch line I cannot begin to imagine. "It is France," was the best any of us could come up with ... And so, a few moments later the real train to Martigny arrived, we boarded and were taken back down the steep hillsides to take the connection back to Lausanne where dinner was at the hotel again. After dinner we prepared our luggage as far as we could for the following morning because we were to leave for the Golden Pass Express, and as we were in Lausanne and not Montreux we would have to leave rather earlier than originally planned in order to get our connecting train. 

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 1

Away at Last!

It was not until we settled into our seats on the train to London that we took in how much we had missed travel since our last trip in autumn last year. Sitting at our "club duo" seats in LNER's First Class and browsing the menu it almost felt like we had come home from a long absence rather than the other way around! The familiar rattle of the catering trolleys being pushed into the coach and the friendly hosts taking our order brought back many memories of past train trips as the countryside slipped past. Late spring and early summer is a brilliant time to travel in England: the greenness of the landscape is just fantastic, especially after the wet weather we had had this spring. The cold drinks came first and we both ordered rosé wine but there was not quite enough left in the bottle on the trolley to pour two glasses, so I volunteered to have white … and the host placed the rosé bottle on our table so that we could finish the last half-glassful between us! We ordered the homity pie, a delicious vegetable pie which came with a “bean salad”, and meanwhile the crisps for a starter and the lemon and elderflower pot for dessert were delivered off the trolley. By the tine we arrived in London all of this had been consumed and we knew we’d need no supper that evening. 

We were on our way by train to London early on a Friday evening ready for a very early start on Saturday to check in for the 08:01 Eurostar train for Paris on our way to Switzerland on another Great Rail Journeys adventure. This one was new to the Great Rail Journeys catalogue, because it uses a train service which had only started a couple of years earlier, the Golden Pass Express which we were to use between Montreux and Interlaken. We had never visited Montreux before, or anywhere else on Lake Geneva, nor Chamonix in France which was included as a day trip by train in this tour. We had never really visited Interlaken, either, although we had changed trains there often enough, and although one of the day trips from there was something we had done before it still included lots we had not. Amazingly with a mix of four- and five-star hotels and First Class rail travel, this tour was not particularly expensive and I did not hesitate to book it as soon as I saw it advertised the previous year. It has been something to look forward to through all the health issues that have dogged me over the last several months, culminating in (yet another) cardioversion just two days before we left home. 

In London we stayed at the Hub by Premier Inn beside Kings Cross railway station. We have used this place once before: it is a touch cheaper less expensive than a proper Premier Inn, but to my mind is still very poor value. The room was very cramped and inconvenient and although this time we did at least have a room above ground (last time we were two floors below ground!) it was till very claustrophobic. We shall probably not use it again: the Premier Inn in Euston Road is also better located for St Pancras station and far more pleasant for just a few pounds more. 

We went to bed early but did not sleep especially well before we were up early and off to St Pancras International railway station to meet Richard our tour manager before going to the International Departures ticket gates to begin our continental rail trip. The station was extremely busy! Train travel has definitely resumed now and we look forward to more services being reinstated. After showing our tickets at the gates we were soon through the security checks and then showed our passports at both UK and French Passport Control - unusually it was the French controller who smiled and spoke to us and not the British one, very odd. Seeing that the preceding train to Paris was just boarding, we thought that if we made our way straight to the café area we might get seats at a table there for our breakfast: this turned out to be correct and while my wife looked after the luggage at our chosen table I went off and bought a couple of black coffees which we drank with the fresh fruit salads we had bought from the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station before we went to our hotel the previous evening. Before long the boarding of our train was announced and we were off on the travelator to the platform to board the train.

We were in coach 3, towards the rear of the train, and our section of the coach was where the wheelchair spaces were located, separated from the rest of the coach by a partition with a couple of private coupes, so it was a cosy area with just nine people in it, and around our table of four there were just us and one other couple on the Great Rail Journeys tour, so we had met the first of our travelling companions already. Before long our Eurostar E320 train slipped out of the platform and began accelerating along High Speed One towards the Channel Tunnel and on to Paris. A continental breakfast was served soon after leaving, as usual in Standard Premier Class on a morning departure. We had finished breakfast by the time we emerged in France, and for some reason the train slowed down and even stopped briefly causing us to arrive a few minutes late in Paris. This was not a concern as we had about three hours to change stations and have lunch before travelling on. As always with Great Rail Journeys we were taken across Paris by coach to Gare de Lyon; if we had been travelling alone we'd have used the RER or Metro, but it would be hard to keep a group together that way. At Gare de Lyon we bought a salad lunch at Monop' Daily as we so often have and ate our lunch outside in the sunshine while we awaited the departure of our train, a TGV Lyria direct to Geneva.

The first part of the TGV journey is unremarkable apart from its high speed, soaring across France down towards Lyon. Here I began typing the first paragraph or two of this blog post, and paid a visit to the buffet bar for drinks. We were with the rest of the group, some two dozen others, on the top deck of a duplex First Class coach and it was all very comfortable. The journey came into its own once we left the high speed line and started wandering towards Switzerland. We were threading our way through the hills where the Jura and the Alps come together and where France, Switzerland and Italy start to share mountains and lakes, and it is all very pretty. At Geneva we were changing trains to take an Interregional service to Lausanne where we were to stay the first three nights. We had changed trains at Geneva before but had been travelling in the opposite direction and taking a French train out of Switzerland. As with going the other way, however, there was no passport control at the EU border (although the facilities were there) and no customs check (although, again, the facilities were there, and we did see someone having their suitcase searched but no-one even looked at us).

Lausanne turned out to be a very interesting city to visit, although it was not originally planned to be part of this tour. We were supposed to be staying in Montreux and for many of us on the tour, ourselves included, Montreux was part of the attraction, but for some reason the hotel there was not available and Great Rail Journeys had booked the Lausanne Palace Hotel for the group instead, a better hotel, apparently, but not quite where we had expected to be. The itinerary otherwise remained the same, although it was not quite as efficient and convenient, but I think we can put up with that as a trade-off for the standard of the hotel. Getting to it from the station was fun: it is a very short walk to the station from the hotel, but the walk to the hotel from the station would be up a very steep hill so we travelled just one stop on the Lausanne Metro. The hotel minibuses took our luggage (and had room for four passengers, too) and we were handed public transport passes for the city which the rest of us then used on the Metro, alighting at Lausanne Flon station opposite our hotel. Well, I say opposite, but it was still four storeys below the hotel entrance, but there is a public lift from the Metro station to the street and we eventually all made it up to street level and were checked into the Palace Hotel. Our room was fantastic. This was a five-star hotel and was well-equipped: unusually for Switzerland there was a coffee maker in the room and the minibar was free to use (although the only alcoholic drink there was beer, but still a great part of the standard offer). By the time we had sorted out our luggage (brought up to our room by the porters) and showered it was time for dinner at a hotel restaurant and then bed. It is always helpful when dinner on the first night is included in these packages especially on Saturdays (busy) or Sundays (half the places closed), and dinner at the Lausanne Palace was great!

On Sunday morning we set of to explore some of the city centre of Lausanne, taking the Metro just two stops to the opposite side of the ravine in which the city's shopping streets are located, from where we were able to cross a bridge to Lausanne Cathedral. As it happened we were there between the Sunday morning services and were able to pop in to look at the building. We did not have time to stay to worship as there was a programme of activities for the rest of the day, but we did spot a likely restaurant for a fondue and kept that in mind as a possibility for the evening unless something even better turned up. We walked back through the quiet Sunday morning shopping streets to our hotel and met the rest of the group for the first group tour. As we were not now staying in Montreux our capable tour manager, Richard, arranged for the group to take an earlier train than necessary for the included tour of the Château de Chillon. The ride along the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in the local language, French) was wonderful with an almost continous view of the lake, with hills beyond and a series of towns, villages and vineyards between the railway and the lake. At Montreux railway station, standing at the platform was the train would be taking later to Interlaken, the Golden Pass Express, looking very splendid.

Montreux, billed as "stylish Montreux" in Great Rail Journeys' publicity, was a lovely place to visit, especially on the waterfront. Some of the party were excited by the statue of Freddie Mercury along the promenade! We bought a take-away salad lunch from the local Micros supermarket and sat by the lakeside to eat it in the warm sunshine. It was an idyllic time, and like most of the group we opted to walk along the lakeside footpath to the Château de Chillon rather than take the train (the plan, had we been staying in Montreux, had been to take the trolleybus there, apparently). We all arrived eventually at the entrance to the Château for the booked guided tour in which we learnt the fascinating history of this building, built on a natural rocky island just off the lake shore by the Savoy family to claim duty on traffic on the lake and conquered by the Bernese a couple of centuries later. While we were being taken around the interior the rain came, and came heavily. By the time we were ready to leave, mercifully the rain had almost ceased, and soon did cease. We made our way to the nearby pier from where a paddle-boat took us back along the lake to Lausanne, with a view of "stylish Montreux" and a few other places where we docked on the way. the weather by now had turned quite good again and we were able to sit on the forward deck with a super view of the surrounding hills and mountains. Most of us then used the Metro again to return to the hotel. We showered and changed and made our way back to the restaurant we had discovered in the morning and enjoyed our classic Swiss cheese fondue with Swiss wine served by attentive staff at the Café L'Evêché, after which we returned to the hotel, with help of the Metro, through the rain which had returned, but was OK for the short times we had to be outside. 

And so our first, brilliant, day of this Swiss "adventure" came to an end. We had visited a cathedral and a castle in two different towns and enjoyed a traditional Swiss supper and we were staying in a wonderful traditional Belle Epoque hotel. We looked forward eagerly to what more new experiences the subsequent days would bring, beginning with the Mont Blanc Express, back into France for the day!