Love in the Swiss Alps

As we slowly found ourselves settling down into a new way of life, in our new apartment, we were counting down the days for the much-awaited vacation cum honeymoon. We were heading to oh-so-gorgeous Switzerland for a 10 day vacation. And as planned, we landed at Zurich airport on 12th May 2007.

Heres our itinerary for the trip. Something that we worked out after lots and lots of changes.

May 12th, 2007

We flew out of SIN to ZRH via Singapore Airlines at around 1 am. That flight was really memorable I must say. We were in the business class (for me this being the first time in business class, i was thrilled). We were in a 3 seater but it wasnt cramped because the plane we took was the bigger one which had more room for movement. I was sitting in the middle- to my right, Vinod and to my left, an old lady who I later found out was 70 yrs and travelling alone. Halfway through the flight, she started feeling breathlessness and asked the stewardess for oxygen masks. She used up one whole tank and asked for another. The cabin crew asked her if she would like to see the doctor on board but she refused. Eventually, they did get a doctor to attend to her ( I was wondering why they even had to ask her, they should have just called the doctor right from the start) She was pricked, had drips attached and what nots. Anyway, that lady made it through to Zurich (though I have no idea what happened to her thereafter).

Along the 12 hour flite to Zurich, the cabin crew brought out a cake that read "Happy Honeymoon" and 2 glasses of champagne for us. We were pleasantly surprised. I was later told by Vinod that his best friend, Bharath and wife had arranged for these.

Eventually, we landed and got our rail pass for the trip validated at the railway office. I think it was 6ish-7 when we landed. I couldn't believe I was out of Singapore and in Zurich. It was amazing walking out of the airport to the railway station, against the background of the alps and the chilly weather. We trodded along to the railway station to catch our train to Lucerne. The first place on our itinerary.

May 12-14th

Zurich- Lucerne

We couldnt check into our hotel till about 2-3 pm that day so we decided to dump our bags in the hotel and head out to explore the place a lil. I must say Lucerne is one pretty city. So beautiful and idyllic. Throughout our stay in Lucerne, we did a city tour, visited the lion monument, the glacier museum sort of thing and BUT OF COZ, Mount Titlis. Who ever goes to Lucerne and not see Titlis. And so we are, at Mt. Titlis, all geared up in our winter wear.

There was this mirror maze we went to in Lucerne..No idea what the significance is, but it was damn cool.

May 14th-16th

Right after breakfast on 14th, we made our way with our bags to the train station to head to Interlaken. We took the Golden Panoramic Train ride which was awesome. Loads of beautiful scenery...felt like heaven. I was really excited about Interlaken because of the famed Jungfrau. Heard so much about it from my colleagues that I wanted to see for myself those beautiful mountains. We were in for a pleasant surprise at our hotel in Interlaken, when they told us that they were upgrading our room to a suite for our honeymoon, complimentary of the hotel. We visited the casino near our hotel, a flower clock and did a mini city tour. Oh yes, we also visited the St. Beatus-Hohlen Caves. Basically, amazing caves. Some pics for yr eyes.

On our way to famed Jungfrau, we stopped by some waterfalls called- Trummelbach Falls. Its basically a series of glacier waterfalls in the mountains....Gosh, the crowd up there...I tell you they were from a tour group and I swear, if you didnt give them space, they would have probably pushed you down the waterfall, leaving you to fight for dear life. So Kiasu!! And they weren't even Singaporeans! After seeing the waterfalls, which was again awesome, we made our way to THE JUNGFRAU! It had been a cloudy day that day and visibility from the top of the mountains was close to 0. Yet, we wanted to go up..at least to tell ppl we visited Jungfrau. When we went up, as expected we could see nothing but clouds. It was snowing so heavily with strong winds. Although we could not see the beauty surrounding Jungfrau, having heavy snowfall and strong winds was an experience on its own!!

May 16th-18th

From Interlaken, we made our way to Geneva for a day. There, besides a lil shopping, we walked around the city. It was a real change from Lucerne and Interlaken as we were suddenly surrounded by lots of people- a real busy city. We saw the flower clock which was quite a disappointment..I mean..it was nothing compared to the one we saw in Interlaken. Oh yes, we did UN, which to me was the highlight of our Geneva trip. We mamaged to do a tour around the UN premises and even watched some health conference in progress.

May 18th-19th

From Geneva, we made our way to Zermatt. One other place I was excited to go. Perhaps coz it is a car-free village and I just wanted to know how people commuted. And u know what..the day we landed in Zermatt, it was actually snowing. According to the hotel guy, it was unusual for it to snow...so we counted ourselves lucky to be able to see it snowing! Went up Gornegrat, another mountain in Zermatt..played with the snow and chilled in our room. It was there in Zermatt, where we had a wonderful dessert...crepe with all sorts of alcohol poured on it.

May 19th-21st

Our final stop is at Zurich where we go round the city and then back home (:( ) to Singapore. Did some or should I say lots of chocolate shopping for ourselves and our friends and family back in Singapore. We also did a day trip to Heidi land and to Liechtenstein. A bit about this place...The Principality of Liechtenstein is a tiny, doubly landlocked alpine country in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to its West and by Austria to its East. However, you don't need a visa or a passport to enter this place. Nonetheless, you can get a chop in your passport if you visit the Post Office. At the end of our Zurich tour, we felt like the pic below: TOP OF ZURICH!

The flight back was smooth as well and this time we got the cake and champagne from his colleagues in Singapore. We landed in the morning and went straight to home sweet home.

Till the next post, Adios!