Swiss trip - the build up

The idea behind the trip was Deepali's. I think it came about at an after-dinner conversation at their place when we visited them in Feb this year. Nothing came of it at that time apart from a general nodding of assembled heads and a murmur about what a good idea it was. Switzerland is a popular destination for every Indian, thanks to all the Bollywood films that are shot there every year. Every Europe tour from India includes Switzerland in it's itinerary - without it the tour would struggle to get any takers.

Deeps picked up the thread a few weeks later and we decided that the long weekend in May was the time to go. For someone who usually gets everything done only at the last moment, I was unusually early in sorting out the bookings for this trip. Even then, it was mainly because Deeps had already got in first and booked her flights. I decided that this was as good a time as any to use my accumulated airmiles, so called up the airline and arranged for us to fly into Geneva & out from Zurich. It was costing me a bit of money in addition to losing all those airmiles but I figured it would be worth it in the end.

Once we knew how we were getting there and organised our travel arrangements inside Switzerland (the must-have Swiss Pass), the next step was getting our accomodation arranged. This wasn't as difficult as we first thought it would be - most locations seemed to have a good range of hotels if your budget's a little flexible. Vaiju & Ranga had also decided to join our little party and by mid-April we had organised everything required for the trip. Now it was just down to playing the waiting game till the end of May.

The plan was to arrive in Geneva on 26th May (Thu) and the next day travel by ferry to Montreux, from where we would take a train to Zermatt that evening. On the 28th (Sat), we would go up the Matterhorn and explore that area before heading north to Interlaken. The 29th (Sun) was for the popular Jungfrau, with Lucerne being our halt for the night. On the 30th (Mon) we had an ambitious schedule - Mount Titlis in the morning followed by a visit to the Rhein Falls in the evening. Our stay that night was in Zurich from where the Glasgow gang would fly back to Glasgow the next day while Deeps & Prashant would travel to Geneva to take the early morning flight back to Gatwick on the 1st (Wed).

It went largely as per that plan.