It’s been a while since my last post. Since my trip back from India, lot of things have kept me busy including reading, yoga, clubbing, theatre and the Twenty20 world cup, which the Indian team surprisingly won. But laziness tops it all. It doesn’t mean that my interest to blog has fizzled out. Infact all these activities have given me enough to write about. It’s just that they are ‘unfinished’. Hehe!
Last weekend I decided to come out of my laziness and flood my blog with a series of posts which unfortunately turned out to be a non-starter. When I started the blog, the idea was to at least write two posts a month. But then again ‘rules are always broken’. Now its the last day of the month, so here goes just one for September!
Of all the list of posts that are queued for posting, my short trip to Switzerland tops it all. However, the post comes in installments as it would be unfair to summarise the beauty of Switzerland in one long post. So here’s Part I of the unforgettable experience.
I have been a big movie buff all my life and since a couple of my friends from childhood shared similar interests, there has been no weekend which went without watching a movie during my school and college days. I fondly remember many of those rainy weekends in coffee shops outside a cinema halls where we had healthy, but heated arguments about why Bollywood should stop shooting movies abroad and choose scenic locales within India to boost tourism and economy of the local hotspots. I singled out Yash Chopra and his likes as the main villains who advertise Switzerland and other scenic locations to fill their coffers. Undoubtedly in business sense they are right in what they are doing. People love to watch movies shot abroad, and these dream merchants from Bollywood do exactly that.
We have been planning all along, for the last six months at least about traveling all across Europe. Somehow, it never materialised. Partly because, I need a Schengen visa to travel around Europe and getting one means, booking for a personal interview at a relevant embassy well in advance, some times a few weeks early. When one of our friends told us about her Swiss experience, and about not needing a visa to travel to Switzerland, we were pumped up and planned the trip over a pint of beer, needless to say within two weeks.
Switzerland is an amazing place with scintillating scenic beauty, especially Interlaken and the Mt. Jungfrau region. It’s easily one of the must visited tourist places in the world. We booked our tickets from Lastminute.com, which offers some really good deals on package holidays. Our Flight + Hotel for two nights and three days including single trip insurance cost us £180.00 per head.
Since our passports did not have a pre issued Swiss sticker called visa, staff at the Heathrow Airport were a bit unsure about letting us board the flight. By the way under the new rules, you are not allowed to have a smiling photograph for passports!!! I wonder how a smile can harm national security.
Anyway, going back to our tryst with the swiss visa, while I managed to get away with a convincing act, two of my friends, Anul and Mansa, were not allowed to check in till the lady at the counter had confirmed with the authorities. Wonder why in spite of so many security measures, terrorism still manages to pervade the society?
We flew on Friday morning from Heathrow Terminal 3 to Zurich by British Airways. The flight is about one and a half hours. The Swiss time is one hour ahead of the British summer time. We landed in Zurich at about 10.30 in the morning and cleared the immigration formalities in no time. Zurich Airport Rail station is easily accessible from the Airport. We were advised by friends to ask for the Swiss Rail Pass as it offers cheap and convenient way of transport in Switzerland. We did accordingly and bought a Swiss Flexi Pass for all of us. The pass costs about £95.00 per head and offers unlimited travel anywhere in Switzerland for a period a four days across rail, road, waterways, cable cars etc and 50 % off on the scenic mountain rail. A real bargain!
Anyway, thats end of episode 1 of our ultimate Swiss experience. Watch this space for more…..
[...] So, it is quite obvious that much of the charm of our Swiss trip is already lost. Having just Part I of a post, with a promise to conclude it in the following post doesn’t seem quite appealing. So will [...]
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptSWISS-tastic – Episode I Filed Under (Travel) by Longhopper It’s been a while since my last post. Since my trip back from India, lot of things have kept me busy including reading, yoga, clubbing, theatre and the Twenty20 world cup, which the Indian team surprisingly won. But laziness tops it all. It doesn’t mean that my interest to blog has fizzled out. Infact all these activities have given me enough to write about. It’s just that they are ‘unfinished’. Hehe! Last weekend I decided to com [...]