The Zurich card covers this stretch of commute; to Uetlitberg and the gondola from Felsenegg down to Adliswil. It will be a scenic hike , weather permitting, along the planetarium trail (6km, 2 hrs). I think waterproof boots will be a must in case of snow.
At Adliswil, there is a Migros Supermarket. Which means takeaway and food stock up.
After that, everything that happens will depend on how our legs can hold us up.
What we did :
Sleep eluded me as my body still ran on Singapore time. At 4am, I was already up an hour later than the day before, which was an improvement.
The hours awake were used to check the weather, which was not so great in the mountains after noon. Pat became a victim of my jetlag. In the end, he had to wake up earlier than planned.
After a simple breakfast in the lovely room, we set off. At Leitzipark West, bus 89 took us to Schweighof where we changed to train S10 bound for Uetliberg.
We reached the terminal station at 9.45am, slightly ahead of schedule. We walked to Uto Kulm hotel, a steep walk until we reached the look out point outside the hotel. It would be better if fog did not obscure the plains of Zurich and Zurichzee below.
The trail head was closed so we retraced our steps and headed to Uto Staffel, in the direction of Felsenegg. The weather cleared enough for us to enjoy the lake views. The trail was well maintained, clean and signposted. At the small section, workers were converting tree into wood chips. They saw us, did a Transformer with their shredding machine and went off so that we could continue our walk.
The last 3km, we were caught in a rain. Fog swallowed the lake and the mountains beyond. It was miserable and we could not see much. The trail was chalky. At Burg Barlden, we had to negotiate stone steps and a narrow gravel path for the first time. It brought back flashbacks of June's Hallasan hike in the downpour.
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| Fog and rain the last 2km of the trail |
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| The Transformer (bulldozer) did this. It also cleared the path so that we could walk unfettered. |
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| A final look at Zurich from Uetliberg, near Felsenegg |
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| View from the gondola going down to Adliswil station |
12.15pm. We reached Felsenegg gondola station. It took us a good 2.5 hours to make the 6km walk in 5C weather. It was exhausting.
The gondola station was unmanned but all the turnstiles and doors seemed to work, as though they knew of our presence. We got up the gondola. By magic, it started the 1 km descent.
7 minutes later, we were down at Adliswil gondola station. The sky has cleared at that side of the mountain range. We went to Adliswil train station and had a yummy buffet lunch (40 CHF for 2, 3.50 CHF/100g) at Migros Takeway. The meal was hearty and I have vegetables for the first time in the trip.
We took the train from Adliswil back to Zurich BH. The 'mission' was to check out the Grindelwald tour pickup point at Shilquai Coach Terminal for the next day. With Pat navigating, we got to the spot in no time.
Now assured, we went to Migros in the main train station where we picked up breakfast for the following day. Of course there was impulse buying; our snacks cost us as much as 13 CHF.
It was 3.30pm. We took bus 31 back to the hotel. At Leizipark, we did an impromptu dropoff and zoomed into Manor for a good 45 minutes. Goods were high end Swiss pricing and we departed empty handed.
We offloaded our bags to dry and to start planning for dinner. We decided to give fondue a miss and have some Turkish grill instead.
Musti Grill was a nice restaurant where you can have a sane conversation without shouting at each other. Pat had the mixed grill and I a vegetarian plate. It was delightful. The bill was 60 CHF with 2 beers.
We were back for good, still undecided what to wear to Bern and how we should make our way to Shilquai station. Looks like a lot of decision making has to be pushed back to the actual day on Thursday.
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