Tuesday, October 22, 2013

RTW 2013 | Golden Pass


So, like I alluded to earlier, I missed by 9:44am train to Lucerne (via interlaken) because I turned off my alarm instead of snoozing it. Originally I had planned on having 3-4 hours in Interlaken before heading on to Lucerne. I quickly showered, packed, and hustled over to the train station. I checked with the counter, and it looks like there was a 10:44 train to Interlaken (had to change in Zweisimmen and Spiel). Since it was overcast, I wouldn’t have been able to see all that much anyways.


Once we left Montreux, the train went up into the mountains again, giving us a birds-eye view of Montreux. The rain made it tough to take pictures, but the view was pretty amazing. The train then headed through the mountains and on to Gstaad before reaching Zweisimmen. In Zweisimmen, we changed trains on to a regional train that would take us to Spiel. The reason we had to switch trains is because the route over the mountain pass was a ¾ meter gauge, while the route from Zweisimmen to Spiel is a meter gauge (width between rails).


In Spiel we changed trains again – a local train to Interlaken Ost. The route took us past the lakes next to Interlaken – Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. These two lakes are why the town is called Interlaken – between the lakes. The town is small, and it seems like it revolves around tourism, especially during the summer hiking season or the winter ski season. I take a detour in Interlaken to check out the Jungfrau and see what all the fuss is about. The mountain is amazing, and is the Jungfraujoch is the highest peak in Europe.


After the detour to see the Jungfrau, I caught the 5pm train to Lucerne. The route from Lucerne to Zurich was incredible, and since the train took a path that was up in the mountains, I was able to catch a glimpse of the towns and lakes all the way to Lucerne. As it darkened, I caught a bit of sleep in preparation for checking out Lucerne that night.

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