Zurich 72 hr pass expires today. We would have to buy a Zurich Day Pass ( abt 5 CHF ). The pick up point at off Zurich Main Station at the Zurich Bus station (opposite Starbucks). We depart at 8am by coach for the 12 hr self guided tour. Research is a must.
Tour bus will hit south to Interlaken then Grindelwald for my free and easy tour. The recommended activity is to take the tram up from Grindelwald GRUND (64 CHF ret) station to Klein Scheidegg. Highlight would be a modest walk and sighting the North Face of Eiger mountain. A binoculus is a must. Then we make our way down for lunch in Grindelwald. Tour comes with a train ticket to Interlaken, where we sightsee and meet up with the coach.
Estimated time back in Zurich is 8pm. Minus the transit time on the highway of 2 hrs, we should depart Interlaken at 6pm the latest. Dinner will be a quick bite near the bus station. Hopefully we can still have a decent meal past 8pm (Musti Grill Turkish 11pm, 500m from Zurich Alstetten Station).
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| 240km bus ride |
6.30am. We bought a 24 hr Day Pass so that it could take us to the Shilquai Coach Park, for a princely sum of 9.20 CHF.
We went by way of bus 31 and then tram 17. In order to milk every cent out of the day pass, we took the bus though a short walk to Shilquai Coach Park will suffice.
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Paragliders coming on the Schlosspark in Interlaken
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Folks on the same tour were already there by 7.15am. We set off at 8am, after waiting for some stragglers. It was a 2 hr trip on the highway and then the mountain pass in Lucern before taking a 1 hr break at Interlaken.
We continued to Grindelwald and reached there at 11am. The bus driver drove the Grindelwald folks (8 of us) to downtown without waiting for the guide to buy us the train tickets. The driver was obviously annoyed at the service lapse on both ends and made lots of angry sounds to the chap over the phone. It was just as annoying to us because we lost precious time.
Almost 12nn, we finally disembarked and went for a lovely fondue/spatzli lunch with views of Eiger at the window seat. We decided not to go up to Kleine Schedegg but walk the town instead. With Eiger looming in and out of the clouds just before us, I was sort of pacified at the earlier waste of time. Should I do this again, it will be on my own terms and timing so that I can walk the Kleine Schedegg pass and be up close to Eiger.
Soon enough, after a thousand photos, we got up the Interlaken Ost train at Grindelwald, steps from where the guide dropped us earlier.
The train was a 'slow' one with a couple of stops. A ticket inspector checked our issued ticket and declared that we had 2 children's ticket (that we underpaid). We were shocked while the inspector was puzzled with my no-head-no-tail story about the bus driver's 'corporate fraud'.
3.30pm. Once we reached Interlaken Ost, we did a river Aara walk. The current was strong, the river reached the banks and the greenish blue water that is part rain and part melted snow made a big impression on the landscape. At the end of the river walk, we were greated by Brienzersee, the east lake. In the last light of the day, it looked lovely and majestic.
We reverse to head west. We walked beside the same river and then onto the high street until we reached Hooters. Hooters is just 200m from the pickup point plus the free use of a toilet.
I had a panna-cotta and Pat ate onion rings. Together with teas, the pre-dinner meal cost 25 CHF. By now, we were resigned to the Swiss pricing.
At 6pm, we got up Bus 2, the same bus that took us to Grindelwald. The ride was less than 2 hr. It was a good ride and we slept all the way back.
Back at Zurich, we grabbed some late dinner grub at COOP in main HB. It is now time to get used to leaving Switzerland and an orderly city where everything works.
Onward march to London!
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