Monday Interlaken and the Glacier Express

Today we're off to Interlaken on the Glacier Express. Our bags would be travelling down to the station by van, this meant we had to have them ready at 0830 hrs in the hotel lobby. We would walk down and meet the van down at the station a little after nine before boarding the Glacier Express. As we walked down to the station there were a few spots of rain, luckily we had just boarded the train, when it absolutely fell down. As we got to the more hilly parts of the journey we had to change engines, as we were now on a rack rail track as the gradients were too great for the wheels to have good traction. This took about 15 minutes just time for a bit of fresh air.

        we passed what is classed, the source of the Rhine. I think there is more than one claim to this honour just like on the source of many rivers.

We continued on with some nice views and as you can see the first class carriages are quite spacious we even got a free Glacier Express biscuit.

      Then it was into the nine and a half mile long tunnel. It was here that things went wrong, about halfway through the tunnel we came to a juddering standstill, after several attempts to get started again we were told that the train had actually broken down and we spent about an hour and a half in the tunnel, until they sent another train in to pull us out backwards. You can see Richard watching it approaching out of the rear window, at least the power stayed on so we had lights, air con and loos. we were pulled backwards all the way to Andermatt where we sat in a siding while other trains went around us. and they put another engine on the front to continue our journey. Because of the delay Swiss rail decided to terminate our journey just at the far end of the tunnel at Oberwald. Luckily Geoff, our tour leader noticed the post bus waiting at the station was going to Meiringen and knew that it was going to be quite close to our final destination, only a short train ride away. He had a word with the train guard, who got the bus to wait while we all boarded. We continued our journey by road using our Swiss Pass. I must say the journey was quite interesting, probably more than the train journey would have been, The trip even included a visit to a dam, crossing the side crest.        The bus was quite crowded but we still picked up people on route including this girl with her dog. The driver seemed more than happy to keep giving it treats, she ended up dragging it up the isle.  

We caught the train for a short journey to Interlaken and walked to our hotel, arriving only slightly late, not quite what we had planned for the day.We would have been at least another couple of hours if it hadn't been for Geoff’s knowledge which would have meant missing the included dinner. The hotel was quite a grand building  complete with outside plunge pool and not too far from the station.

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Chur Sunday, A day of leisure to Arosa

As it was another day of leisure we decided to make a lazy start planning to catch the 0937hr. train to Arosa, if we missed that we would catch the 1009hr. train. What happened, we arrived at the station just before the 0909hr train left, so we caught that. In my opinion this short journey was one of the prettiest we have travelled on. The line is such an important link that they are rebuilding bridges without closing it.

Once in Arosa we had a wander round the lake and up into the town. The lake has a large fountain with a rainbow in it. We also came across a horse drawn carriage making his way down to the town square. We decided not to go up the cable car which may have been a mistake as others who also visited said they had wonderful views. They even have a station to pressure wash your bike after riding the mountain trails.

After quite a short wander round we caught the train back to Chur,

The afternoon was spent exploring Chur old town with its decorated houses and churches.This is one of the churches we visited.

The other was much more ornate.  We had to take care there wasn’t a service on as it was Sunday.

Another place we visited was the museum, entry fee included on our Swiss Pass. We didn’t take any photos inside but the displays covered 5 floors.

If you look through the arch in the photo below you can see the train going by, its on its way to Arosa and the tracks are laid in the road.

		I thought this seat was a good idea as you could always face the sun

As it was Sunday not so many places were open to eat.

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