Heather and Sean yesterday had put forward the idea of catching the train up to Arosa, a skiing village to the south east that would take around an hour to get there. The information we had received was that the Chur Guest Card from Chur Tourism would give us free travel on the buses and mountain railways for the duration of our stay. As none of us had any other plans we decided to go for it even though the weather was not ideal as you can see in the picture above. The plan was to check out how things were looking and potentially catch the cable car to the mountain top overseeing Chur to get some town views.
We popped in to the servo next to the hotel to pick up some supplies and jumped on the bus to head to the station. The station was one of the stops on the street, where the train travels from Chur central station up the road to Chur Altstadt (where we were getting on) before leaving the streets to head through the mountains to Arosa. There was a 20 minute wait, but that was fine we watched the raging torrent of glacial and snow melt running down the channel and spoke about some of the history of Switzerland while we waited.
We jumped on at the back of the train where we were the only ones in the carriage and were able to spread out a bit, the openable windows in these carriages would come in handy as we made our way through the idyllic scenery. As we progressed up the mountain through various tunnels and across various bridges, along came a ticket inspector.
We showed the Chur Guest Card assuming it was the correct ticket to show for the train ride, as the terminology suggested:
“Free use of public transport in the TransReno fare network, Zone 1 (2nd Class). Not valid for bikes and dogs. Valid after check-in. Not included: Bernina Express and Glacier Express. In addition, the guest card is not valid if the train does pass the station Felsberg, Chur West, Chur Altstadt Chur, Wiesental and Haldenstein without stopping.”
As we got on at Chur Altstadt we had figured we were in the clear. The inspector confirmed with us that it was not the entire Arosa line. There I was thinking “Well shit, this time I don’t have a ticket at all unlike yesterday so I’m proper fucked now” especially after Sean mentioned they had Interrail passes. However, the inspector had a machine and costed up some fares for us for the outbound and return trip. I’m lucky that I have physical tickets for everything associated with the next four days of train trips I’m doing because I feel like my luck is running out with these inspectors already and I’m only 5 days in to my 42 day journey.
That issue aside though the train ride was amazing and was a taster for what’s to come over the next few days. Between the Bernina Express to Tirano, the standard train back from Tirano, and the Glacier Express this is where I’ll be putting the hammer down on the photo tally.
The only downside was that it was raining at Arosa, and the mist meant we didn’t really get a good look at the mountains. Depending on my timing getting back from Tirano on Friday, I might attempt to get back there again and see if I get more favourable weather. It had started to clear on the way back down, as you can see, the middle photo of the three above and the one below are the same bridge.
When we got back down to the station we made our way through the old town, a section of the city that was missed in my self-guided walking tour. So now I do kind of feel like I’ve seen all of Chur. It was interesting to walk through and see all the narrow laneways and historic architecture of the old city, where you then cross a road and it’s all new and modern.
We walked around and got to the base station for the cable car… and it was closed. Until June it’s only open on weekends. Just to add salt into the wound the staff member that showed up (where I actually did not see where he came from, it was like he just appeared from around the corner) to inform us of this then took a ride up on the cable car himself. Oh well.
We ended up making our way back to the hotel for a while then popped back into town to check on some final information before heading out tomorrow. It turns out we are on the same Bernina Express train and even in the same carriage. I’m on an earlier train getting to St Moritz so I’ve said I’ll scout out what we need to do and have a quick look around. The forecast is for it to be only 3 degrees. So that’ll be fun!
Anyway that’s just about it for today, I had dinner in a nice restaurant where everything was in German. I had bolognese in the end, but didn’t take any photos as I got a vibe that it was not the place for that sort of thing as I got a couple of looks the minute I got my phone out to double check some translations. But hey, the food was delicious so I butchered saying “Das war lecker, danke” (that was delicious, thanks) to the wait staff, paid for the food and made my way out.
Tomorrow is the first of four pretty big days of rail travel that will see me visit 5 destinations across 8 different train services and 2 countries. So I’m off to sort through my luggage to make sure I have everything for an overnight bag as my suitcase is staying here in Chur until I come back on Friday.
Here’s a lesson in what not to do: Don’t purchase tickets online and then lose your only way to access them by… not being online.
It’s a bit of a long one but I promise I’ll come back to that. Today was the day to depart Zurich and head south towards the Alps. I had booked a lot of my tickets in advance but stupidly forgot the one to get me from Zurich to Chur, figuring I had no idea at that point what I was going to be doing I purchased a day pass before leaving and thought nothing more of it at the time.
It turns out I probably could have spent a bit more of the morning in Zurich as I thought it was a 10am checkout but it turns out it was a midday checkout. But I’d booked my all day train ticket and planned which train I was catching so I opted against it and made my way to the station.
The train ride was smooth. The Intercity Express (ICE) services operate on the Stadler KISS platform, a double-decker train developed here in Switzerland. Apparently it’s an acronym that translates to “Comfortable, Innovative, Sprint-capable, Suburban”. Quite interesting that they have the curved windows on the top deck to get more of a panoramic view. I guess it makes sense they make their own trains given their demands for precision.
The lakes continued on for around half the journey, but eventually gave way to the mountains and I got my first glimpse of the snow-capped peaks in the distance.
No doubt you’re wondering where the story of the opening paragraph comes in? Keep reading we’re almost there.
The train arrived in Chur on time. As it turns out the name of the town is actually pronounced Cur, or Cor, depending on who you’re speaking to. But it’s like, incur, without the “in”, or curve without the “ve” if that makes sense. To me it makes sense because it’s not pronounced “Zoo-rich” as the h is silent it becomes “Zoo-Rick”. So it makes sense to me.
Anyway the first thing I did was have a shower because the walk from Chur West station to the hotel with an 18kg case in a late spring Switzerland sun was not fun. Apparently the average humidity level at this time of year is 71% and I could believe that. Then I headed back into the centre of town, but instead of being sensible and taking the train… I walked.
And walked.
In the end today I’ve walked a mammoth 24,400 steps. And have drawn on the map below my best guess at the walking tour of Chur I took myself on.
By 5pm I was heading back to Chur West, decided not to be stupid this time and jumped on the train, except I jumped on the wrong train. Sure I jumped on a train to Thusis which is the direction I wanted to be going, but it was an express train that was not stopping where I wanted to be going. Well shit that’s a problem. But before I had a chance to jump off the train and head back to Chur, I encountered SBB ticket inspectors.
Queue the opening paragraph. There I was being asked for my ticket and I had no internet connection to view it with and had, at various points, been given the opportunity to download it but had not done so. The hotel when I bought the ticket, Zurich Station where there was free Wifi, Chur station where there was free Wifi, the hotel when I checked in and was given the Wifi password, the Chur information centre where there was free Wifi. The universe was throwing opportunities at me to download the damn ticket and I missed all of them. Anyway here is the sign notifying you what the deal is with ticketing. Pay particular attention to the bit in the bottom left of the yellow sticker.
Yes, that is a 100 Swiss Francs fine at minimum. 160AUD at current exchange rates. So I’m now speaking to this ticket inspector trying to explain to him that I didn’t have internet to access it, he says it’s not a good enough excuse. I explain that I don’t have internet because roaming is not enabled for Switzerland with my provider and that I was from Australia. He seemed to click at this, it might have come up before I don’t know, but he offered to hotspot his phone so I could access the tickets through his mobile connection. I was able to do it and show the ticket. Came away from it with a stern warning to download my tickets in future and he sent me on my way apologising profusely for my idiot traveller moment.
Met a wonderful couple in the lobby by pure luck of checking if the restaurant was open (it wasn’t). Shaun (edit: Sean) and Heather from England. They were looking to ask the front desk about the buses and asked me if I knew anything, I didn’t as I spent all day legging it around town. Turns out we might be doing the same Bernina Express trip in a couple of days as we both ended up having to book just the St Moritz to Tirano leg due to the Chur to Tirano service being booked out extremely quickly.
Anyway that about sums up the day. I leave you with the photo of Binny the Wandering Ibis basking in the Switzerland sun outside the latest stop.
Oh and something completely off topic, I’ve now started a spot the fast food game. So far I’m up to 6 Burger Kings, 2 Macca’s, 3 Subways and one KFC.
Actually one more for the road, I rolled out the hat for the first time so here’s a photo with my face in it.
Well I had a better night’s sleep last night after I figured out I could open the window to let some of the cool Swiss air into the room. The air conditioning either isn’t working or is intentionally turned so low that it barely pushes any air, and that made the room extremely hot the first night.
Today I booked in to a city bus tour and Lake Zurich cruise. It was scheduled to leave at midday so I had the morning to wander around looking at more of Zurich. I decided to head in the direction I accidentally started heading after arriving in Zurich. Did some train spotting at the western end of Zurich Central Station and wandered the back streets of Zurich. It was here I finally found my first Macca’s, after seeing six Burger King’s already. I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to see one until I reached Chur where I know there is one (you will see when I get there later tomorrow).
As it was getting close to the tour time I made my way back to where the tour bus departs from and attempted to check in with the organisers. I had been advised that the ticket would come to me via email but I had not received anything. Assuming the information was also sent digitally to the organisers I mentioned that I was here for the tour. “Do you have a ticket?”, oh dear this is going to be a problem isn’t it? “No I never received a ticket, I purchased it from the info centre in the station”, he rather abruptly responds “No ticket, no tour”. Okay, so I hightail it back to the info centre. The representative there can’t find any record of my booking. She calls both tour companies in case I was booked on the second one I didn’t speak to, nothing. Nobody but my bank account had an record I had purchased the tour. She asked me if I still had the receipt, which I did but it was back in the hotel and it was 11:50 at this point. There were two options. Book the 12 o’clock tour and leg it back there in time to board. Grab the receipt and organise the refund later. Or go back to the hotel, grab the receipt, and transfer the booking to the 2pm tour. I opted to do the latter.
Once I had the receipt the booking transfer was easy and despite me saying not to worry about it I received a packet of Haribo’s for the inconvenience. Now I had another hour to kill and I’d already had lunch before the original tour time, so I decided to just hang out at the Starbuck’s across the road until the tour start time.
This time booking in for the tour I handed the ticket over to the chap in the booking office and he said “ah, you have ticket now”, as I explained that the info centre made the mistake and never actually booked me in he nodded and said “it happens from time to time, but you are ready to go now.”
It would have been ideal for the 12 o’clock tour to work out, as it started raining part way through the bus tour as you will see in some of my photos below. I have a lot of things to look up to cover some of the history of Zurich but to cover some of the basics (and hopefully I’ve got all of this right but I’ll fact check later), the city is in one of 26 states of Switzerland, each state is run by a Caton that formulate regional policy and tax laws. There is then an overall federal government that address wider national and international issues. The city started as a gateway for trade coming from upstream on the lake. The Roman empire established a trading port that would later become Zurich. The city started with fabrics, specifically silk and cotton, before moving heavily into building Switzerland’s infrastructure. A man named Alfred Escher established many things Zurich is now famous for. He pushed legislation to allow the establishment of private rail companies that resulted in rapid and widespread development of Switzerland’s rail network. To help pay for all of this, he established Schweizerische Kreditanstalt which later became known as Credit Suisse. As the rail projects started to grow in number more workers were needed with engineering and science skills, so he established the Zurich Polytechnic (now known as ETH Zurich), and to help pay for insurance for the workers established Swiss Life, the largest life insurance company in Switzerland. So this Escher chap did earn the title of “Founder of Modern Switzerland”.
There’s a lot more to talk about regarding the history of Zurich and its role in Switzerland history as a whole. But we leave it with this, the mascot of Zurich is the lion, and it is used in almost all major structures as part of Zurich’s heritage. As you can see here on RHI Insurance headquarters (an insurance company that insures insurance company), and the Kunsthaus Zurich (Art Museum, with bonus bronze statue of “the Gates of Hell”), as well as the lion statue on the waterfront of lake Zurich.
Tomorrow it’s time to leave Zurich and head south towards the Alps to a town called Chur. I feel like there is definitely a lot more to explore of this city so if I’m ever back in Europe I’d like to spend some more time here.
More photos to share, I’ll get to them when I reach Chur. Cheers!
Update: Some History
A bit more from the tour that I’ve remembered. The Bahnhofstrausse shopping street used to form part of the moat that protected the main village along with a city wall. The moat was filled in and turned into the walking shopping strip with tram lines running down the centre (another similarity to Melbourne to add to the list) in1867. The other part of the moat still forms the Schanzengraben through parts of the city centre. The wall was torn down during the Helvetic Revolution in the late 1700’s.
If you think our rental market is bananas at home, Switzerland’s home ownership rate in some cities sits at 10%! Geneva is the worst with 10%, Zurich sits at approximately 28%, the capital city Bern sits at just under 40%. The majority of Swiss simply don’t have the capital required to purchase a home. Rental laws are sufficient to protect tenants from sudden eviction, with the legislation stating that homeowners must allow their tenants to find a new property. A process that, due to how hot their rental market is, can take years!
Laptop battery died, I’ll need to charge it overnight and go through today’s photos in the morning. Check back this afternoon Aus Eastern time (maybe around 5pm depending on what time I wake up and how long it takes me to write the post).
I’m not sure if it’s a thing, but Zurich feels like it should be one of those arrangements where cities form “Sister City” partnerships because Zurich has quite a lot in common with Melbourne. Right down to the interchangeable weather at the near drop of a hat.
To say that the day has been long is an understatement. Realistically the 8th of May for me has been around 36 hours long. As I flew out of Singapore just after midnight and was chasing the timezones backwards on the very long flight.
I lucked into 17,847 steps on the technicality that half of those happened at Singapore Airport “yesterday”. Walking from terminal 3 where I landed to Terminal 1 where my Zurich bound flight was departing from. Still, just under nine thousand steps today was achievement since I’m running on the fumes of an oily rag because I barely slept on the flight.
With an extensive tram network, scenic city lookouts, riverside walking and cycling paths, river catamarans, cafe culture, and an expressive and imposing central station (even though the facade is undergoing some maintenance) there’s a lot here to consider it Switzerland’s Melbourne (a big city that isn’t the capital city).
It turns our Zurich International Airport is also rather large, not quite as big as Changi yesterday but big enough that you need to catch a cable train to get from the terminals to the baggage collection. It had this really neat display as it goes through the underground tunnel where several screens form a flipbook-like display. I didn’t get any footage of it as I was busy thinking through my itinerary to answer questions about where I was going to be and what I was going to be doing if I was asked. But I found a video online that I’ve linked below to show it (as the video is in Swiss German you might not understand the dialogue). Getting through customs was a breeze though, the border police just asked how long I was here for and my purpose for being here. Once I explained I was here for travel, and roughly where I was going, my passport was minted with a fresh stamp and I was on my way to baggage collection.
From here I caught a train into Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich Central Station), made my way out and proceeded to head in the complete opposite direction to the hotel for a few hundred metres before realising that I should have crossed the river almost immediately after exiting the station. Which, when I got back to where I first came out of the station, was exactly what I did.
Made it to the hotel a short time later, it wasn’t that far of a walk once I was headed in the correct direction. Ended up paying for early check in so I could immediately jump in and have a shower. Two plane flights and a bunch of walking needed cleansing. It has a rain shower which is nice.
I headed out for a walk back to the station to scope out where I need to be for the train to Chur on Tuesday. It’s pretty easy, go back the way I came out of the station underpass and find the platform that has “Chur” on the display. Pretty much every platform is accessible from the upper underpass level, with two further underground levels encompassing the underground platforms to go along with the above ground platforms.
With that sorted, I bought some lunch from a stall at the station and made my way to the riverside park to eat it. Really lovely to sit in a park that does not have perfectly maintained grass and plant beds. The park here was allowed to grow with bee attracting daisies and clovers. The birds were also well looked after with almost every tree having artificial nesting boxes attached.
I contemplated going back to the hotel and having a kip as I was feeling proper wrecked at that point, but decided to push on and only came back to pick up the zoom lens and a warmer jacket as I felt the temperature was starting to drop. Turned out to be a good decision because the clouds had started rolling in and by the time I caught the train to Uetliberg it had started raining! That wasn’t going to dampen my spirits though, up the mountain I went!
Uetliberg is the highest point in Zurich, with a nice viewing area to look out and across the city and lake Zurichsee.
Lastly I leave you with a photo of The Wandering Ibis “Binny” outside the first stop of our adventure. Tomorrow I’ve booked in a day on a tour bus and boat ride out on the lake. The weather is supposed to start of pretty bad but clear during the morning so I should be able to get some nice shots from the boat.
It has been a mammoth day that is drawing to a close as I await my flight from Singapore to Zurich. It is 11:21PM as I write this and my flight is due to depart at 1:45AM, it is approximately 28 degrees outside, and I’d say very high humidity. My humidity sensors are tingling. I’ve taken a bit of a walk around the airport to scout some things to do but honestly this place is massive. All four terminals of Melbourne could fit into one terminal here.
Being a hub airport there’s an eclectic mix of people coming and going. I’m seeing plenty of Aussie’s and Kiwi’s, so there’s more than enough of us on the move to various places at the moment.
I’ve caught the Sky Train from Terminal 3 where I landed around to Terminal 2 to find the big board of flight information. Found that my Zurich flight was departing from Terminal 1 and decided to leg it there rather than take the overly packed Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 Sky Train (the system seems to be broken down into three blocks rather than running in one big loop).
The flight was non-eventful, which is kinda what you want I suppose. My headphones didn’t work to watch a movie until late in the flight when I was able to score some complimentary headphones. I ended up watching Ford vs Ferrari. It’s a good movie. Depending on whether I sleep or not will determine if I watch another movie on the way to Zurich now that I have a suitable adapter.
I need to add a couple of photos to this post later, probably when I get to the hotel in Zurich, to show some of the scale of this place, the pictures didn’t do it justice just how big this airport is.
I also managed to confirm with the airport that my 27 hour layover on the way back is a fringe case that unfortunately makes me ineligible to participate in the Singapore City Tour. I guess I’ll just have to add it to my destination list for a future holiday.
I need to go for another walk before this flight, my back is already killing me after a 7h 30m flight, I might need to lie down when I get to the hotel in Zurich to straighten my back out again.
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