After months of planning and preparing, we took off on a Thursday night from JFK airport for our big trip to Europe. We arrived in Zürich, Switzerland the following morning. The plan was to work our way east via rail thru Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna and Budapest. I should point out that Jeannie handled all the research on logistics and the reservations, and deserves special thanks, especially cuz almost everything came off without a hitch and turned out awesome.
The flight itself was comfortable and uneventful. The movie was about superheroes that had lots of explosions but made no sense to me cuz I didn’t see the other 20 or so movies involved in the setup. Something something time travel and a do-over for the apocalypse. Since I’m six and half feet tall and have accumulated tons of air miles over the years I decided to splurge and go business class, and so I was actually able to stretch out a bit and get some sleep. Plus they had some really fine whiskey. When I woke up we were just coming off the ocean over France. Looking out the window you could see how the land usage patterns were different than the States. Much less rectangular, with lots of little villages dotting irregular patches of farmland and forrest like constellations. Eventually the terrain became more and more mountainous and soon it was time to land.
It was a pretty quick cab ride from the airport to the hotel, and so we checked in. Amazing that four people and our luggage fit into a Prius wagon. The hotel was really nice; we had a two-room suite with one room for Jeannie and me and the other for the girls. It was a European style hotel with only four floors or so and a handful of rooms on each floor. We were all tired from the flight so we took a bit of a nap, and then got up and went out to explore the neighborhood. I was expecting a thoroughly modern city, but we were staying in the old part of town. So it was a mix of new and old, with a charming and laid-back vibe, with hills and streetcars, much closer in tone to San Francisco than New York City. We walked past the university, which was up on a hill some nice views. Within a few blocks we got to the historic district which was mainly closed to vehicles, and full of 500 year old buildings and little town squares with fountains. We stopped for lunch, which was quiche and cheesecakes and cappuccinos, in a little outdoor café. Very lovely.
Our destination was a few blocks more: the Kunsthaus Zürich, one of the city’s art museums. I’m a big fan of Albrecht Dürer, and they supposedly had a big collection of his work there. Unfortunately it turned out that most of it was lithographs and because the paper is old and sensitive to light, that stuff is not on public display and I would have had to call ahead to arrange a viewing. Ah well. There was lots of other cool stuff including Mondrian, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, alot of Dutch Masters from the Renaissance, and alot of paintings of chalets and mountains and cows by Swiss artists. Some interesting sculptures too. Lizzy said it reminded her of the Albright-Knox gallery in Buffalo, and it was of the same scope and scale. All in all very cool.
It was raining when we were done so we took an uber back to the hotel. We were a bit jet-lagged out so we took another nap. When we went out again it was time to look for dinner. At first we were thinking of getting fondu. The hotel restaurant was listed in the city guide as a great fondu place, but unfortunately it was closed because, you know, August in Europe. So we walked around the city to see what we could find.
At first we went down to the river, just a few blocks away, and followed that out the mouth of the lake, where there was a park where we watched the sunset. Quite beautiful. After that we headed back into the old downtown, where there were quite a few restaurants and cafés. We did find a fondu place but they couldn’t seat us for almost and hour, so instead we went to an Italian place nearby. The food was really excellent, and not very different from the Italian food you get in the States. With a nice bottle of wine it was just the thing.
Of course we had to stop in a shop and load up on chocolate.
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We only had one day in Switzerland. So even though we’re all about clocks and chocolates and cheese, and were especially passionate about neutrality, next day were up bright and early to catch the train to Innsbruck, Austria.
The plan was to take trains each leg of the trip, and I must say it worked out great. The train stations are all right downtown, a short walk or cab ride from the hotels and all the interesting stuff. And there’s not alot of waiting around and standing in line like there is in an airport. So, quick and easy.
The train system was Austria Railjet. The trains are fast too: they get up to 200 km/hr. And they’re very smooth and comfortable compared to Amtrack, Metro North or the Long Island Railroad. Don’t even mention the New York City Subway.
Switzerland, Austria and Hungary are each smaller than New York State in both area and population, so everything is pretty close together. The total distance from Zürich to Budapest is about 1000 kilometers, about the same as from New York to Detroit. This first leg was the longest leg of the trip, about three hours.
And it was a spectacularly scenic leg of the trip. We could have paid extra to be in the observation car, but it was pretty amazing as it was. I’ve never been to the Alps before and had no idea what to expect. I’d compare them the the Sierras in California and Nevada in terms of height and scale. But they must be very new as far as mountains go; erosion has not had time to do much work. The peaks are very jagged, like rows of crooked teeth, with cliff and ravines everywhere. Add to that the fact that this place has been settled by humans for thousands and thousands of years, so the land was not blank like the mountains back home. Instead there were little villages in the crevices and less steep hillsides, and the odd house or church or ruins of a castle in the most improbable spots. Overall the effect was surreal.
We passed thru Liechtenstein on the way. When we were planning the trip we’d considered having lunch there just to say we did it, but there were no train stations in Liechtenstein. There was one on either side of the border in Switzerland and Austria. So then the plan became to head down to the bar car and have a toast. But the country came and went so fast we didn’t even have time for that. Ah well.