It took one plane, two buses, four trains and 16 hours, but we finally made it to Interlaken, Switzerland, around 10 p.m. Sunday (sorry, this post is a little late ... we couldn't find a good WiFi connection last night.)
I felt like Steve Martin's character in "Planes, trains and automobiles" as he is just trying to get home but problem after problem delay his journey. We had a few hiccups in our journey Sunday, but the beautiful scenery that is all around us -- lakes and mountains -- is making up for the crazy day we experienced. We will have three days and four nights in this Swiss gem, so we'll soon be laughing about Sunday's headaches.
Since it was such a long travel day, this entry will probably be a little on the short side.
We left our hostel in Dubrovnik around 6:15 a.m. to make our way to the airport to fly to Milan, Italy. We took a shuttle bus (bus one) from near the hostel to the airport, about a 30 minute ride. Chris and I were both a little worried that our packs would be close to the 20 kg limit but they were only about 13 kg a piece. We took a one hour and twenty minute Easy Jet flight (flight one) to Milan and then boarded another bus (bus two) to travel to the city center to the train station.
Walking to board our flight in Milan Sunday morning
We weren't sure if we could catch the 12:25 p.m. train to Switzerland since we didn't arrive at the train station until around noon. We rushed inside, looked at the timetable and spotted the train we thought we needed to take. With almost 25 minutes to spare, we decided to get some Burger King to go and then head for the train.
We got on board, ate our sandwiches and everything went well for the next 1.5 hours (train one).
Until, that is, we realized we were on the wrong train. We ended up in Genoa, Italy, located south of Milan and the opposite direction of where we wanted to be. Thankfully, there was another train leaving five minutes after we arrived to take us back to Milan so we could catch another train to Switzerland (train two).
Strike one for the day.
We returned around 4 p.m. and went directly to the timetable. Our train schedule book told us there was a train leaving at 5:25 p.m. but it wasn't listed yet since it was so early. We decided to get something to drink and wait about 15 minutes to check the train schedule again. The place we visited boasted free WiFi, so we ordered one Coke and one water and tried to surf the Net for a little while. The Internet didn't work, however, so we asked for the bill ... $10 for one water and one Coke!
Strike two for the day.
We returned to the train schedule board only to discover that our train still wasn't listed. We then decided to visit the ticket office to get some help. The agent told us the last train to Spiez, Switzerland, was booked except for first class. Thankfully our EuRail tickets are for first class, so we booked two tickets for the 6:25 p.m. train to Spiez (train three).
We arrived a little before 9 p.m. and caught one more train (train four) to Interlaken. It was about a 15 minute walk from the station to our hostel, but we made it and are here for the next few days.
I'm looking forward to seeing everything Monday as we begin to plan how we are going to spend our three days in this beautiful country.
More to come Monday night.
Chau,
Justin
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