Wednesday 13 July 2011

Rainy train trip

The weather changed for the worse overnight, with thunder and intermittent rain. The mountains were either shrouded in mist or decorated with massive cloud formations. We said our goodbyes and took a taxi from Grabs to Buchs railway station, rather than get wet through walking to the bus. In fact, it rained on and off, all the way from the east of the country to its westernmost tip.

We went from Buchs to Sargans on a regional train, and shared the carriage with a class of primary school children who sang with their teacher for most of the journey. At Sargans we picked up the inter-city train to Zurich, and with perfect timing caught the westbound train which, although destined for Geneva, only took us as far as Bern, where we had to change from the standard double decker inter-city express to another older train, 40-50 years old to take us onwards.

Apparently the double decker had to be taken out of service for technical reasons. All we had to do was walk across the platform and board the replacement. This took less than ten minutes, and we still arrived in Geneva at the scheduled time. A very impressive feat of organisation on the part of Swiss railways, and quite crucial, given that the final destination of the train is Geneva Airport, and some travellers would be relying on punctuality to catch flights elsewhere.

As for us, our dear friend Manel met us at Cornavin station and drove us to her apartment in Petit Sacconex, where she fed us royally with a Sri Lankan curry for supper. It's great to be back in the city we know and love as much as we love Cardiff.
  

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