Date of Travel: Saturday August 12, 2006 - Tuesday August 15,2006
My First European Tour - Trip to Heaven
Things that come to our mind when we talk about Switzerland are mountains, greenery, large open grounds and snow. Switzerland is the first choice of location for majority of big film producers in bollywood for shooting of songs for their movies. Locations, where one can find a fabulous view of cloudy mountains covered with snow or large open green grounds with cold breeze blowing almost every time, guarantees the success of their movie. Yash Chopra played a major role in making Switzerland famous in India. Be it “Tu hai meri Kiran” from Darr or “Tujhe dekha to yeah jaana sanam” from DDLJ, the breathtaking scenic beauties in these songs take you to another world. Such songs picturized in this place which shows natural beauty and peaceful place, inspired many newly wed couples to visit Switzerland for their honeymoon.
It was only my 2nd or 3rd day of stay here in Munich, when PP informed me that he was planning our first trip in coming long weekend. He then disclosed the location. Can you guess it!!! It was SWITZERLAND.
We were planning to cover Zurich, Luzern, Interlaken and Bern in our trip. Along with these cities the tourist points that were in our list were either Mt Pilatus or Mt Titlus, and Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe covered with ice glaciers).
At Swiss border, St Margerethen, we were asked to show our passports. Since we were having Germany’s residence permit it was not an issue. Separate entry visa for Switzerland is not required if you have Germany’s residence permit. We were now in my dream location; Switzerland.
After enjoying total of 4.5hrs of natural beauties we reached Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof at around 11:40AM.
Zurich
After coming out of the platform we started looking for a tourist information center. While we were searching for the information center we couldn’t help noticing many people wearing fancy dresses. Their dresses were almost transparent and many were wearing funny ornaments to match with their equally funny dresses. Anyway, we asked 2-3 people and got our way to the information center. In the hall in front of information center a huge DJ performance was going on. Then we realized all that funny dressed guys were headed to this place. I was astonished to see the place. It was a joyous event for them and everyone was trying to gain the other’s attention by dressing in fancy way. Someone was posing himself as Dracula while the other was wearing dog’s belt over his neck with chain. Some girls were dressed like innocent angels with nipples in their mouth and wings attached to them. They were all drinking and smoking.
At information center we were informed that it was a festive time, (There was a music festival in Switzerland from 1st of Aug, and continues for around 2 weeks), a street parade was the event during the day and all that fancy dress and DJ was in preparation for that street parade. We then asked him about the locations that we could visit in Zurich. He gave us city map and informed that the city can be covered in 3.5-4 hrs by walking. He also marked some important points of significance to see and drew the route that we could follow to cover the city. He also informed us that we can cover the city from outside by boat and since we were having Swiss pass the boat ride would be free. We also enquired about locker facility and exchange center. Since we were having only Euros, we needed some Swiss Francs as well as long as we were in Switzerland. We thanked him and left the center. We then arranged Swiss Francs and locked our luggage in a station locker. After surrendering our luggage we were in liberty to go anywhere.
We first decided to cover the city by boat. Luckily the boat was ready to leave when we reached there. We boarded the boat and the boat started. We were enjoying the boat ride and the city view. City was having rows of houses and churches at river side. A big fountain in the river, ducks and a huge giant wheel at far could be seen from the boat. Soon we caught our attention by two Hindi speaking couples. They were sitting behind us in the boat. We looked at them and they greeted us with smile. We exchanged few words and learnt that they were from Pune and came from Munich itself and were having almost same itinerary as ours. It was a half an hour ride and by the time we reached shore it started drizzling. We bid good-bye to them and started towards our way.
It was the lunch time and we were feeling hungry. So, we decided to have our lunch in a park nearby. It started raining heavily by then; we located a dry seat and started our lunch. We opened our umbrellas and had our lunch under its shade. We were smiling at our new experience of having lunch in an open garden under a tree which was dripping and we were still sitting there and eating our lunch as nothing was happening. Since the rain didn’t stop even after our lunch we decided to go back to Hauptbahnhof the main station.
After reaching station as we didn’t have anywhere to go, PP decided to go inside the hall where DJ performance was happening and cover the place at least once. But, I somehow didn’t like the idea of going in between that mob. To me they were totally unpredictable and were not in their senses. I didn’t like this culture of drinking and smoking in open at noon. But PP assured me that they were enjoying in themselves and damned cared about anyone else. Since PP wanted to see the place I gathered some courage, caught PP tightly by hands and then started with him. But soon I started feeling uncomfortable between them and went out of the mob. I forced PP to go ahead without me but then he was not the one to leave me behind alone. So, he also stayed with me and we enjoyed the performance from outside. I still feel sorry that because of me he was not able to enjoy the DJ performance.
We then started our city tour walking. We first reached Zurich University. We went through the main hall, few auditoriums and class rooms and then left the place. We then strolled through the old town following the city map. We could see the trails of the past, as the roads were of bricks and not of modern style. Mood of festival season could be seen everywhere. After every 20 steps music systems were set up by the nearby shops playing loud music and there were people dancing and drinking and enjoying the event not to mention in fancy dress. Following city map we also covered GrossMunster and Fraumunster Church.
On the way to our tour we reached another point where another DJ was performing for the crowd. Here some performers were also there performing for the crowd. It was a huge ground and not a single space was left by the crowd. There we came to know that the giant wheel that we saw from boat was set up especially for the event. There we stood for some time and then left again to continue our tour. As we crossed the ground we found that the street parade was near to the place and we were heading towards the parade.
On our way ahead we saw a trailer loaded with performers in white dresses. The trailer was open and was serving as a platform for the performers. It was moving forward very slowly. There was loud music playing and all of the performers were dancing in their own style. Multiple cameras were also rolling to record the event. The crowd was cheering them and was eager to get even a single glimpse of them. Different colors of life could be seen as the crowd itself was dressed in a fancy way. The similar view of multiple colors with fancy dress could be seen everywhere. That was street parade. We watched the parade for a while and then left.
We then continued our strolling through the remaining city. Multiple DJs were setup at different locations. We were doing window shopping as well on the way and when we reached Hauptbahnhof it was around 5 PM.
We collected our belongings from the locker. From there our plan was to go Luzern. But our train was not scheduled to leave in another 40-50 mins so we went to check shops at station. We went to one chocolate shop. Since we were taking time in deciding chocolates and considering we were not from there, a lady standing nearby helped us in deciding chocolate. She told us about one nice chocolate that should be finished in 2-3 hours, and was not supposed to be kept for long. We bought that chocolates, thanked the lady for her help and then left for platform.
We were waiting for train at platform, which was scheduled to come around 6 PM. The chocolates were looking so tempting that we ate them even before the train reached platform. The chocolates were really nice. It melted as soon as we put them in the mouth. We left Zurich by 6’oclock train and by 6:50 PM we were in Luzern.
AUGUST ‘06: A Big Surprise awaits me
It was only my 2nd or 3rd day of stay here in Munich, when PP informed me that he was planning our first trip in coming long weekend. He then disclosed the location. Can you guess it!!! It was SWITZERLAND.
We were planning to cover Zurich, Luzern, Interlaken and Bern in our trip. Along with these cities the tourist points that were in our list were either Mt Pilatus or Mt Titlus, and Jungfraujoch (Top of Europe covered with ice glaciers).
Saturday August 12, 2006
Munich – Zurich - Luzern
We started for our first destination i.e. Zurich by train at around 7:30AM. Beautiful natural scenes welcomed us as the train left the outskirts of city. Big open green grounds where a domestic animal or two were roaming and eating grass and a small hut in the middle of this open ground; I had only seen such scenes in our computer as a forwarding mails or as wallpaper and now I was face to face with these beauties that I didn’t know really existed. We were holding hands and were enjoying every view of outside.At Swiss border, St Margerethen, we were asked to show our passports. Since we were having Germany’s residence permit it was not an issue. Separate entry visa for Switzerland is not required if you have Germany’s residence permit. We were now in my dream location; Switzerland.
After enjoying total of 4.5hrs of natural beauties we reached Zurich’s Hauptbahnhof at around 11:40AM.
Zurich
After coming out of the platform we started looking for a tourist information center. While we were searching for the information center we couldn’t help noticing many people wearing fancy dresses. Their dresses were almost transparent and many were wearing funny ornaments to match with their equally funny dresses. Anyway, we asked 2-3 people and got our way to the information center. In the hall in front of information center a huge DJ performance was going on. Then we realized all that funny dressed guys were headed to this place. I was astonished to see the place. It was a joyous event for them and everyone was trying to gain the other’s attention by dressing in fancy way. Someone was posing himself as Dracula while the other was wearing dog’s belt over his neck with chain. Some girls were dressed like innocent angels with nipples in their mouth and wings attached to them. They were all drinking and smoking.
At information center we were informed that it was a festive time, (There was a music festival in Switzerland from 1st of Aug, and continues for around 2 weeks), a street parade was the event during the day and all that fancy dress and DJ was in preparation for that street parade. We then asked him about the locations that we could visit in Zurich. He gave us city map and informed that the city can be covered in 3.5-4 hrs by walking. He also marked some important points of significance to see and drew the route that we could follow to cover the city. He also informed us that we can cover the city from outside by boat and since we were having Swiss pass the boat ride would be free. We also enquired about locker facility and exchange center. Since we were having only Euros, we needed some Swiss Francs as well as long as we were in Switzerland. We thanked him and left the center. We then arranged Swiss Francs and locked our luggage in a station locker. After surrendering our luggage we were in liberty to go anywhere.
We first decided to cover the city by boat. Luckily the boat was ready to leave when we reached there. We boarded the boat and the boat started. We were enjoying the boat ride and the city view. City was having rows of houses and churches at river side. A big fountain in the river, ducks and a huge giant wheel at far could be seen from the boat. Soon we caught our attention by two Hindi speaking couples. They were sitting behind us in the boat. We looked at them and they greeted us with smile. We exchanged few words and learnt that they were from Pune and came from Munich itself and were having almost same itinerary as ours. It was a half an hour ride and by the time we reached shore it started drizzling. We bid good-bye to them and started towards our way.
It was the lunch time and we were feeling hungry. So, we decided to have our lunch in a park nearby. It started raining heavily by then; we located a dry seat and started our lunch. We opened our umbrellas and had our lunch under its shade. We were smiling at our new experience of having lunch in an open garden under a tree which was dripping and we were still sitting there and eating our lunch as nothing was happening. Since the rain didn’t stop even after our lunch we decided to go back to Hauptbahnhof the main station.
After reaching station as we didn’t have anywhere to go, PP decided to go inside the hall where DJ performance was happening and cover the place at least once. But, I somehow didn’t like the idea of going in between that mob. To me they were totally unpredictable and were not in their senses. I didn’t like this culture of drinking and smoking in open at noon. But PP assured me that they were enjoying in themselves and damned cared about anyone else. Since PP wanted to see the place I gathered some courage, caught PP tightly by hands and then started with him. But soon I started feeling uncomfortable between them and went out of the mob. I forced PP to go ahead without me but then he was not the one to leave me behind alone. So, he also stayed with me and we enjoyed the performance from outside. I still feel sorry that because of me he was not able to enjoy the DJ performance.
We then started our city tour walking. We first reached Zurich University. We went through the main hall, few auditoriums and class rooms and then left the place. We then strolled through the old town following the city map. We could see the trails of the past, as the roads were of bricks and not of modern style. Mood of festival season could be seen everywhere. After every 20 steps music systems were set up by the nearby shops playing loud music and there were people dancing and drinking and enjoying the event not to mention in fancy dress. Following city map we also covered GrossMunster and Fraumunster Church.
On the way to our tour we reached another point where another DJ was performing for the crowd. Here some performers were also there performing for the crowd. It was a huge ground and not a single space was left by the crowd. There we came to know that the giant wheel that we saw from boat was set up especially for the event. There we stood for some time and then left again to continue our tour. As we crossed the ground we found that the street parade was near to the place and we were heading towards the parade.
On our way ahead we saw a trailer loaded with performers in white dresses. The trailer was open and was serving as a platform for the performers. It was moving forward very slowly. There was loud music playing and all of the performers were dancing in their own style. Multiple cameras were also rolling to record the event. The crowd was cheering them and was eager to get even a single glimpse of them. Different colors of life could be seen as the crowd itself was dressed in a fancy way. The similar view of multiple colors with fancy dress could be seen everywhere. That was street parade. We watched the parade for a while and then left.
We then continued our strolling through the remaining city. Multiple DJs were setup at different locations. We were doing window shopping as well on the way and when we reached Hauptbahnhof it was around 5 PM.
We collected our belongings from the locker. From there our plan was to go Luzern. But our train was not scheduled to leave in another 40-50 mins so we went to check shops at station. We went to one chocolate shop. Since we were taking time in deciding chocolates and considering we were not from there, a lady standing nearby helped us in deciding chocolate. She told us about one nice chocolate that should be finished in 2-3 hours, and was not supposed to be kept for long. We bought that chocolates, thanked the lady for her help and then left for platform.
We were waiting for train at platform, which was scheduled to come around 6 PM. The chocolates were looking so tempting that we ate them even before the train reached platform. The chocolates were really nice. It melted as soon as we put them in the mouth. We left Zurich by 6’oclock train and by 6:50 PM we were in Luzern.
(Please follow Label "Switzerland" on the right side for the detail of my 4 day trip)
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