4 July 2015
We left Heathrow/Windsor Marriott Hotel at 7.00 AM for the 25 minutes drive to Heathrow Airport. Our flight to Zurich departs at 9.30 AM and we needed some extra time to return our rental car and grab some breakfast. I was glad to see the British Airways concorde, parked outside a hanger, while waiting for our turn to take-off. This aircraft is now out of service and a reminder of the days when supersonic commercial air travel was available. Not sure when such service would return again.
BA712 took us to Zurich by 12:20 PM. Instead of a mysterious crop circle, I spotted a man-made equivalent of a Swiss army knife symbol, etched on one of the fields near the airport.
Zurich has one of the best airport in the world. This is an airport where I could safely bring a specially designed, fully loaded luggage cart onto the escalators to travel between floors. Amazing! We had to queue for a short time at the Swiss Rail Ticket office to buy the Half Fare Card for 120 CHF valid for 30-days. It gives 50% off the Jungfraujoch trip and all other rail and cable cars travel in Switzerland, including the boat rides on Lake Brienz. At the same time, we also bought the tickets for the journey from the airport all the way to Wengen. With the tickets sorted out, we went to the Baggage Services in the train station to forward two large pieces of suitcases to Wengen train station. This is an excellent and highly recommended service to use. It freed us from having to lug heavy luggage up and down trains and we board the trains with only backpacks and carry-on luggage. Next thing we did before boarding the train at Zurich Airport is to buy some take-away food and drinks for the train ride.
For tourist, the recommended route to Wengen is via Luzern. We took the 13:47 train from the airport to Luzern to catch the famous Golden Pass Line service from Luzern to Interlaken Ost. The train to Interlaken Ost departed exactly as scheduled at 15.05. We had only 15 minutes to make the connections but it was sufficient time as the Swiss train runs like clockwork and we did not have any heavy luggage with us. The journey from Luzern to Interlaken Ost offered an extremely scenic and enjoyable ride.
Sitting on the right side of the train, we passed the Sarnersee and the Lungerersee on our right and have good views into the valley on the right as we left Brunig and drop down into Meiringen. The train reverses at Meiringen but we don't change sides as we soon reach Brienz and have the lake on our left almost all the way to Interlaken Ost. 10 minutues after arrival in Interlaken Ost, we were on another train bound for Lauterbrunnen.
Lauterbrunnen lies in the bottom of a narrow valley with Murren high up on the ridge on the right side, and Wengen high up on a ridge on the left side. Our apartment for the next one week was at Wengen. The rack railway train ride up the slopes to Wengen from Lautebrunnen took 15 minutes. All in all, our train journey from Zurich airport to Wengen took 4 hours 4 minutes. Swiss train timings, accurate to the minute!
The Interhome office where we had to collect the leys to our rental apartment is located very close to the Wengen train station and it was easy to find with the clear instructions provided.
Wengen is an idyllic, car-free holiday resort with about 1,330 inhabitants, on top of a hill, situated at the foot of a mountain. It is on a plateau with beautiful view of the alps above it and Lauterbrunnen valley beneath. We did not need much time to explore this relatively small alpine village.
Our home for the next one week is the Apartment 8, in the Bella Vista apartment block. The Bella Vista apartment was built in 2006 and is only 200 m from the centre of Wengen, on a slope with excellent views. Our apartment is 130 m2 and has modern and stylish furnishings: large living/dining room with open-hearth fireplace, cable TV, radio, CD-player and DVD and internet (WiFi).
It has 3 bedrooms. 1 room with 1 double bed (1 x 160 cm,
length 200 cm). 2 rooms, each room with 2 beds (90 cm, length 200 cm). Perfect for our family of 5.
The open kitchen came with oven, dishwasher, 4 ceramic glass hob hotplates, electric coffee machine, Nespresso coffee machine.
The best of all, it has a large balcony with balcony furniture and marvellous panoramic views of the mountains.
This was the view that we would be seeing every morning and evening for the next week. Fantastic!Soon after check-in, we went to check out the Coop grocery store but it closed early. I was glad that we managed to buy some stuff for our breakfast from a local store, located right outside the train station. Dinner on the first day was instant noodles that we brought from home. Interhome actually provides a pre-arrival grocery service but we did not make use of it.
Eating out in Switzerland is quite expensive and having our dinners and breakfasts in our self-catering apartment is one sure way to save money that can be used to pay for more holidays!
The sun sets at about 9 PM in summer. Time for some rest and relaxation as we had planned a long hike the next day.
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