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Bernese Oberland Archive |
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Bernese Oberland Archive |
Welcome to my personal diary of the trip to the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland in September 2003
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Day 1: Travel to Switzerland
The alarm goes off at 0545. Time to go to Switzerland for a week’s walking in the Bernese Oberland! Didn't really need it anyway since I've been awake for some time running over the details in my head. Let's hope it all goes reasonably according to plan! This is the first trip I've organised almost entirely by e-mail, and using the internet for research. Will EasyJet let us down? Ah well .. we'll soon find out.
But it's just enough time to have some breakfast and check the rucsac before duty driver Miriam arrives at 0645 for the airport. We're carrying everything we need for the 7 days walking with us, so there's no room for mistakes. Suncream and sunglasses in? All the routes and confirmations?? Yes, it's all there. So .. let's go and pick up Diane before parking the car in the long stay and catching the shuttle bus to Glasgow Airport!
Everybody arrives more or less around 8am at that peculiar Portakabin known as the St Andrews Building to check in for the EasyJet flight to London Luton. There’s 11 in the group at this stage … Ian, Iris, Richard, Allan, Mark, Willie, Bob, Kenny, Miriam, Diane and me. The walking poles are checked in Mark's kitbag as usual, and despite the sudden queue at the Luton desk, we've plenty of time for a coffee and cake before departure. The flight's allegedly on time at 0920, but it doesn't matter anyway since we've a 3-hour wait at Luton for the next leg to Zurich .. and where Arlene and Brandon will be joining us.
The flights turn out to be pretty much on time, and pretty good too. When the cabin door opens at Zurich, that blast of hot holiday-resort air rushes in and all seems well with the world. Next task is to find the train to Zurich main station where we'll dump some items of luggage (fresh clothes!) for collection on our return. According to the timetable, there's exactly 12 minutes to get this done .. and the Swiss trains leave when they say they will!
After a mad dash to the left-luggage lockers, it turns out that they're only good for 1 day .. after that the luggage "will be removed and taken to the left luggage office for collection". Following another mad dash to the LL office .. at the other end of the station .. and a payment of 21SFr for the 3 items, we've yet another mad dash for platform 54 ... all in 90 degree heat. And the train's gone! Ah well, just means we'll get to our first hotel one hour later at about 9pm .. plenty of time to mop up the sweat! Hope they keep the dinner warm!!
And as we board the next train for the first leg to Lucerne, a text message arrives on my phone from John and Liz Logie, who've driven up from their home in France to join us at Meiringen, and are already installed in the Hotel Rebstock. A few texts later and all is sorted with the hotel .. including 2 vegetarian dinners, one for Arlene and one for me .. and apparently there's some nice French beer chilling in their shower tray ready for our arrival!
We've a short time to wait at Lucerne for the lightweight train which will take us over the Brünig Pass and down to Meiringen. The views are spectacular as we climb quickly to the pass and approach the Oberland, but darkness falls as we make a slow, squealing and steep descent into the town .. they must have to replace the brakes on these trains every week!
The Logie welcome at the station is also spectacular, and a late evening of eating and drinking was enjoyed in the balmy outdoors of the hotel. But the walking starts in the morning!
Quote of the day: "We've got beer and white wine chilling in the bathroom .. and some red here"
Thank you Liz and John!
