Swiss trip - day two

Day two - 27th May, Friday

We had arranged to meet down for breakfast at 7.00 so we could get away on the 7.50 bus to the airport to take the train into town. A rather expensive taxi ride from the train station got us & our bags to the Mont Blanc pier from where we were to take our ferry to Montreux. The La Suisse was waiting for at the pier and we quickly hopped on. This 70 metre steamer built in 1910 for Lake Geneva could hold 1200 passengers, but today there were only about a dozen, most of them in the first class section on the upper deck. We relegated ourselves to the more comfortable & sparsely populated second class open deck.

Unlike our experience at Loch Ness, Lake Geneva turned out to be a very calm body of water with only a light breeze that did virtually nothing to bring down the temperatures. As we left Geneva, we had excellent views of the waterfront & the fountain. Some of the more famous Swiss watchmakers are based in Geneva - the names written in tall letters on top of the waterfront buildings a clear indication.

Our ferry ride was to take most of the morning, getting us into Montreux past the lunch hour. In the duration, we were to call at a few ports with riviera-ish names like Nyon, Lausanne, Vevey, etc. What we didn't realise was that some of these ports were actually on the French side of Lake Geneva. There was some excitement when we arrived at our first French port - the little village of Yvoire. We didn't really believe it until confirmed by one of the crewmen that it was indeed France. There was little evidence of any border control - people just seemed to walk off the boat and into the village. At Evian, Shoba got off the boat to take a photo while standing on French soil - that's another tick on her countries visited list!

Montreux is a picturesque & colourful little town very similar to the others on the shores of Lake Geneva, on both the Swiss & the French sides. It is built on two levels with convenient public escalators & lifts joining the two. We had a couple of hours before the train to Zermatt and since lunch had been had on the ferry, we decided to explore this town. The only attraction apart from the picturesque waterfront was a short bus ride away to the Chateau de Chillon (which was incidentally in the adjoining village of Villeneuve!). This castle was originally built in the 12th century and has since been added to regularly. It sits on a small rocky island on Lake Geneva with a drawbridge serving as the only entry point. We didn't go in - seemed pointless & anyways the entry fees were a bit steep, but instead we spent about an hour in the gardens, enjoying the view of the lake & the French Alps while having some delicious icecream. There was the usual gang of Indian tourists who arrived in two busloads - enthusiastic fathers with camcorders & digital cameras, bored mothers overdressed for the Swiss summer and the kids more interested in the conversation with friends they had made on the trip.

Back in Montreux, we took the 1640 train from Montreux to Visp from where we caught the famous Glacier Express on it's way from St. Moritz in the east to Zermatt. The route from Visp to Zermatt takes just over an hour, but the train climbs almost a kilometre (~3300 feet) in altitude. The route twists & turns it's way up the Alps and the views at every point in the journey are excellent. Deep valleys on one side & high peaks on the other kept us peering out of the windows on both sides, cameras & camcorders in full flow. The stations on the route were also small villages, with names like St. Niklaus, Randa & Tasch.

Zermatt was only a remote mountain village at the turn of the previous century, until the Glacier Express started bringing in the tourists. Now it is a car-free little town that has still managed to retain it's old-world charm, with old brown chalets and twisting alleyways. As we came off the train into the main square, the hotel's electric taxi - a modified golf buggy - took us & our bags the couple of hundred yards to our hotel. The very helpful lady at the reception sorted out the rooms for us - Shoba & I got a view of the Matterhorn (& a craned neck in the process!), Deeps & Prashant had views of the street while Vaiju & Ranga had the large room also with a view of the Matterhorn.

There was still some daylight left so we used the opportunity to walk around the small town. With it's winding streets and no cars, Zermatt has a very romantic feel about it. Even though it nestles 1600 m (5260 ft) above sea-level (Ben Nevis is 4400 ft), there was only a cool breeze about. As in every village, town & city in Switzerland, the only souvenirs available were cow bells, Swiss army knives, Swiss chocolates & Swiss watches. Zermatt is also a rare example of a town without a single Indian restaurant, so we got back to our hotel and to it's Italian restaurant.

If I had had any concerns about our accomodation before the trip started, it was about Zermatt.
We were in a hotel that boasted the only disco in town and advertised itself as the most happening place in town, hardly the place to go for a good night's sleep. But I need not have worried - the disco was in the cellar and the summer season meant that when Vaiju & Ranga went to check it out, they were the only folk in the place. So Aditi had to make do with the piano in the passage outside their room for entertainment, while we fell asleep to the quarterly chimes from the nearby church clock.