Inter Rail 1987 Day 1 and Day 2

Saturday 30th May 1987
I was woken up by the alarm at the ungody hour of 5.30am. Got dressed quickly, rang for a taxi and was in West Derby Royal Mail sorting office by 6.00am. Thank God my passport, complete with visa was there to be picked up.

Got another taxi down to Liverpool Lime Street railway station. Rang Jon to let him know we were OK to go on on our final Inter Rail holiday and left on the train for London Euston.

On arrival at Euston, bought my InterRail ticket and the ferry crossing ticket from Dover to Calais. Then got the tube down to Victoria.

Met Jon at Victoria railway station. It was incredibly busy, plus there were loads of people, especially women, dressed in silly Victorian clothes with a band playing when we arrived. As we had time to kill before out train left we went to the Fountain Pub, around the corner from the station, for lunch and a few drinks. Tried to ring Andy & Branka to have a word but there was no reply.

Caught our train down to Dover with no problems. Had an uneventful ferry crossing over to Calais. Tried our best to get a couchette on the sleeper train overnight down to Nice but they were fully booked so we had to say goodbye to a visit to Monaco to take in the Grand Prix.

Couldn't get seats straight through to Innsbruck, our intended first destination. Ended up sharing our compartment with a smart arse Brummie insurance broker git. The floor of the compartment was not that comfortable so only "slept" until 5:30am. That's when a little man came into the compartment and told us we'd arrived in Basel and had to get off the train. Saturday 31th May 1987

Went through Customs. ie walked passed little Swiss and French customs men who just nodded at our passports. Having shelled out the equivalent of £1 for cup of coffee, began to feel vaguely human again.

Caught the train which would take us to Innsbruck as was the original plan. Once on the train, our plans changed and we decided to see something of Switzerland. Using our trusty timetable, we planned a round trip through the mountains on umpteen little lines. We then got talking to a little local woman who told us not to rush about too quickly.

She told us if we only stopped once in Switzerland we should have a look at Lucerne. We consulted the InterRail Bible and it agreed with that assessment. So Lucerne it was. We changed trains at Zurich and headed for Lucerne. Checked our rucksacks into the station left luggage and headed for the lakeside.

Bought a ferry ticket for an hour and a half trip in the sunshine on Lac Lucerne to Alpnachstad at the SW corner of the lake. From there we caught the world's steepest cog railway (48% incline for 9m). Brilliant ride straight up the side of Mount Pilatus to the summit at 7000ft. There was loads of snow still lying around. The air was a bit thin up there and I felt a little light-headed. It could have been lack of sleep, lack of food, the high altitude or a mixture of all three.

Some of the mountain top walks were closed due to the snow, but there were plenty of others to follow. The view of the lake was a bit obscured by haze, but the Alps could be seen in all their glory; the Jungfrau and the Eiger in particular. The views were indescribably beautiful. Lots of activity at the summit. 4 or 5 men parascended from the summit whilst we were up there. Some of the others from the cog railway went walking down the mountainside. We sat around and wrote some postcards.

Eventually we wangled our way as the last two onto the gondola for a bloody fast ride to a halfway house. From there, we picked up a 4 seat gondola cable car ride. I've never been on such a long ride. We even had to be switched at another halfway point. The whole ride down took about 35-45 minutes.

At Kreins, at the bottom of the ride, we caught a trolleybus back to Lucerne station. We did work out how we were supposed to pay for this trip but we didn't have the Swiss shrapnel to do so, so didn't!

The chicken and chips with a large beer in the station buffet was excellent. After that welcome food break, we went for a wander along the Kappelbrücke or Chapel Bridge, which is a wooden covered bridge over the River Reuss, dating from the 14th century. Inside the bridge are paintings dating from the 17th century which depict events in Lucerne's history. Having no guide book, we had to interpret these paintings ourselves. It seems that the history of Lucerne is littered with loads of men wearing goldfish bowls on their heads! Wouldn't normally have been so cultural, but it had started to piss down with rain and we were under cover.

Having collected the rucksacks from left luggage, we had to work out our next plan of action. Decided upon a train back to Zurich, then a train to Basel, back to where we'd started the day. We would then catch the Weiner Wattinzer straight through to Budapest. Tried to get to McDonalds in Zurich, but this proved impossible so ended up having a burger in Burger King. After twice nearly breaking the automatic shopping machine in the Zurich subway, we finally managed to lay our hands on a loaf of bread and some pate. Got rid of our last Swiss shrapnel by buying some grapes in Basel.

Only one cariage was going straight through to Budapest. Before arriving in Zurich we did our settling down in a very off putting way act. There were crowds going to Wien but our sleeping act kept us people free until the early hours of the morning when a guy pushed his way in. Apart from 3 ticket checks and 1 passport check, I got a bloody good nights sleep rather than just dozing shut eye. Didn't stir properly until about 8.00am. Arrived into Wien Westbahnhof at about 9.30am

Me Calais

Jon Zurich

Jon Lucerne

Cog Railway

Me Pilatus

Me Lucerne

Lucerne