Monday-Wednesday, 13-15 July, 2015

Well, it is time to go home. No photos today so just a series of dot points.

* We are flying out tonight late (10:45) so I mostly hang around for the day while Julie prances around. It is a Monday so everything is open.

* The leftovers from last night are a great meal start to the day.

* The fantastic Zina has allowed us to stay in the flat until 4:00 PM which means I am able to do a lot of Blog work.

* Eventually, Julie returns. We pack the bags and exit the apartment, leaving behind a nice half bottle of wine for Zina. Today we walk to the train station with our bags behind us.

* The train ride to the airport is straightforward other than we cannot work out how to get in the ideal carriage. Apparently a young kid showed Julie how to do so and we moved into it. Not a long trip any way.

* Zurich airport is another one of those big, big ones with lots of people everywhere. It is so much easier in Business Class.

* After checking in, we have a choice to go to the near Lounge or a far one nearer the exit gate. We picked the near one, which was probably a good choice as it allowed Julie to go around to the airport shops while we waited.

* And waited we did. We were in that lounge for over 6 hours before the flight took off. Whereas the Internet worked well, the food selection was not special with one hot dish only of macaroni and beef. The drinks were OK albeit I had trouble finding Water of all things. I would make a comment about Swiss and its Business Class. It was OK, but there were little things missing on all three of our legs. Apparently it used to be a great airline but had fallen on hard times before being bought out.

* After another long, long wait, we go down to the departure gate. We were told it was a 30 minute journey so we head off appropriately early. We were just about the last persons to leave the lounge.

* We do have to go through an exit immigration but it was not anywhere near as bad as CDG.

* The flight was a long one to Singapore 12+ hours. The meal was OK, I had Geschnitzeles, Veal and Mushrooms. The seats were the same as the way over with the Port column set up with alternating 1 and 2 seats so that the fully extended beds did not clash although I found it a bit funny as you had to twist a bit to get into the bed. Of the layout Business Class beds I have used, this was close to the least comfortable. I did get 4-5 hours sleep which ain’t bad.

* When we land in Singapore at Terminal 2, it is a long, long walk to the shuttle to Terminal 1 which we need to go to since we are flying Qantas on our last leg.

* At Terminal 1, it is another long, long walk to the Qantas Lounge. It turns out to be in an area of the airport, upstairs, where it has generally been since I first went to Singapore in 1986. However, it is so much better bright and airy whereas in the past it was kind of dingy.

* The food and catering was first class compared to the last lounge we were in. Qantas on these over night flights has worked out that you can order a meal at a bar in the lounge so that you can go straight to sleep on the plane. I did not do that but Julie managed to get a wok cooked Salmon, naturally. She eventually came back with an Irish Coffee too. I had some nice hot snacks and good wine too.

* The staff were incredibly friendly and very helpful.

* Boarding the plane, the Business Class seat is one of the best I have seen and many times better than the one on the previous flight.

* The food menu is a list of “snacks”. I order a Pho while Julie orders a Chicken Curry. When the food is delivered, we both get a Chicken Curry. This was a bit of serendipity for me as this was one of the better meals on the entire trip – I obviously was missing some spicy food which we really did not have over the 6+ weeks.

* I would say that of the airlines on this trip, Qantas was easily the best. I have flown the Big Q a lot over times and frankly had become less than excited about it. However, they had really lifted their game. Gudonya Qantas. Having said that, the breakfast choice did not meet my likes.

* MEL seemed to have gone well. Early off the plane, get to the kiosks for the Immigration card, pick up the duty free, to the baggage carousel. Then things start to deteriorate. My suitcase, with its priority tag, comes out about half way through the non-priority bags. Even worse, Julie’s suitcase does not come out at all. Just as the last bags are coming down the carousel, Julie is paged. Turns out her suitcase had gone a trip to Timbuktu or somewhere like that. I am afraid that this is just one of the wonderful (NOT) things about flying. So we went from the very first person off the plane, me in my favourite seat 1E, to the last one to exit the airport. Hey, if you are going to have your suitcase lost or delayed, it is so much better at the end of the trip than the start – which happened to me the time we flew into Barcelona. Post mortem: the suitcase was delivered to Edgevale a day later, no harm – no foul.

* We go straight through immigration and customs and outside to the Taxi rank. My god, it is 2 degrees! We had left Zurich at a lovely 28 degrees. Why did we come back?

* We are dropped off at Edgevale and it is as cold as a Morgue inside. We have 4 heaters and they are all on for the next several days. Damn it is cold.

So folks, that is the end of the trip and this part of the Blog. I hope that you loyal readers enjoyed some of the recordings and musings in it. There will be no more on the Blog part of this website for another couple of months until our trip to Southern Spain come September. There will probably be some postings under the 2015 Page of this site.

Cheers Mates!!!

Sunday, 12 July, 2015

It is a Sunday which means most of the shops in Zurich are closed. We wanted to buy a baguette last night but the girl said that the ones for sale were a couple of days old. She suggested that we go to the shops underneath the train station to get a fresh one tomorrow. So Julie does that and also purchases some travel tickets.

It is our last full day on this extended holiday so we decided we would just do the standard Tourist stuff – the activities are listed as BT .

BT1 – after a nice breakfast from the purchases from last night, which naturally included Smoked Salmon, and purchases from this morning, we go out to the train station. It is a short enough walk, but like all good tourists we take the tram.

BT2 – we catch a train up to the peak behind Zurich.

Note once again how quiet the station is. Tomorrow this will be packed with people. Any way we find the train and it is a smooth ride up to the top albeit with lots of stops and occasional delays as trains from the other direction go by on the mostly single track.

We are still a ways to the summit so we decide to walk up to it. Once we start it is clear to me that it is virtually straight uphill and my legs will not be able to handle it. Julie goes up on her own and takes a few photos.

Julie comes down just in time to catch a train down the hill. Which brings us to:

BT3 – a Boat Cruise around the Lake

From the train station we take a Tram to the lake. There is not a long wait for a cruise albeit there are a lot of people in the queue. What this means is that the “premium” seats up top and outside are all taken but that does not really matter.

There are a number of stops along the way and at each of them there a lot of bathers luxuriating in the beautiful weather.

We cross the lake to the other side and a few stops on get off at a place where there is supposed to be a good restaurant. Instead, there is a large waterside pub where we settle in for a while.

After 90 minutes, our original boat shows up so we hop onto it to return to the main dock.

We were just about the last people off the boat. This meant that there were long queues to catch the tram back. It was only a couple of stops and it was a beautiful day so it was no problem at all to walk back.

BT4 – A German Beer Hall

What a way to finish our touristy day. We go to the German (claimed to be Swiss) restaurant just up from our apartment. We are sitting outside so it is not formally a beer hall although inside would definitely be.

http://www.zeughauskeller.ch/home

The menu had a few interesting thing such as:

Whole pork shank (skinned) marinated with fresh herbs and oven-roasted, simmered in dark draught beer and served with fresh potato salad; or

Mayor’s sword: 400 gr of marinated baby-beef steaks, pounded thin, wrapped around the sword blade and grilled lean, served with a bowl of mixed salad or Rösti (hash brown potatoes “Swiss style”) or French fries; served with a curry-garlic and barbecue sauce To share for 2 persons.

No, we did not order that. A waiter kindly took a photo of one ordered at another table. It actually looked a lot more impressive in person than in the photo.

Julie really enjoyed that dish. The menu had a number of sausages and after the success from the previous night I decided to go with:

Zeughauskeller Wurstspiess: a selection of our finest grilled sausage specialities on a skewer (300 gr), served with our famous homemade potato salad and onion sauce

Note that I ordered it with “Rösti” (hash brown potatoes “Swiss style”) instead of the Potato salad.

Julie convinced me to take home some of the leftover sausages et al for breakfast tomorrow.

Enough of the BTs, I think we did well with our touristy day, it is time for bed.

Saturday, 11 June,2015

We leave the apartment early to head to the train station and then CDG. Although not flying Turkish, we are still spooked by CDG so we get away very early. It is a short walk to our nearest train station and lugging the luggage down a few stairs was not too bad. The only thing that goes wrong is when we are going through the turnstiles, Julie pulls my suitcase through and leaves me behind. I am stuck between the turnstile and the big barrier gates. I have used up all my spare Metro tickets so will I be stuck there forever? At last a local comes by with a season path and after instructing me to do something, in French so I could not understand it, he eventually gets me and him through the gates.

It is a short ride on the Metro to Gare du Nord and from there a very easy transfer to the RER that goes to CDG. It turns out to be a direct “flight”. We had heard from the Authorities about all the pickpockets and bag snatchers at Gare du Nord and on the RER train but I guess it must have been too early in the morning for them. We arrive at CDG “Terminal 1” but we already knew after our experience of nearly 3 weeks ago that we would be at Terminal 3. Being well practised, we get on the Shuttle to Terminal 1. Swiss Air check-in goes well, we are in Business Class the rest of the way home. They send us to the Lounge but the way is blocked and we discover we have to go through that horrible Immigration line again. This time of day it is very short so we go through and then find the lifts to the Lounge. It is actually quite good and has a decent small omelet as well as other facilities. They said that we needed an hour to get to our departure gate and we wondered why. Well, they send us the totally wrong way, a long walk and then another Immigration gate, looking like we were entering France again. The wait was not too long, but why was it required? After passing through there is another long walk back towards the Security and then the departure gates. Without saying too much more, I don’t really like CDG although it has improved from a few years before and I can’t necessarily blame CDG for the Turkish Airlines stuff up – but CDG is still not my favourite.

Eventually we board the Swiss flight. It is smooth enough while the food is unexceptional for Business Class. There is a very nice German Stewardess that chats with us for most of the flight. We land at Zurich airport and what a difference – no Immigration, no Customs – just straight through. Our priority bags get off OK and the train to Central Zurich is very efficient and fast.

Our Hostess for our apartment, the wonderful Zina, had given us very detailed instructions on how to find the apartment in Zurich Old Town. The only trouble was, and pretty much the same as in Paris, there was detail missing on the very first step. We were to go out the exit to the tram line to ride up to where we were to get off. However, there were at least three exits from the train station and only one of them worked. We went to the information booth, but the queue there was at least 100 people long so we set out ourselves. Of course, we went out the wrong way and nearly headed in the totally wrong direction. A good thing, Julie found a helpful Swiss guy who pointed us in the right direction. We had decided in advance we would walk the suitcases instead of taking a tram and it was an OK walk and the weather was beautiful.

At the destination end, the directions were absolutely perfect and we could not fail to find the apartment building. We had some troubles with the keylock but the problems were our klutziness, not the directions. Zina came down, Julie may have buzzed her other apartment where she lived, and helped us get the key and then up to the apartment. It was so much better than the last place in Paris with one large room that was very clean and had lots of the facilities we wanted including a large desk for the Internet use which turned out to be quite fast. Zina showed us everything, a delightful person and I recommend both her and the apartment highly.

https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/3382719

The only problem that I had was that she had added a Futon, or the equivalent, and that effectively meant sleeping very close to the floor. An old decrepit, Senior citizen like me had some trouble getting out of bed. Any way, Julie goes out prancing and I do Blogging and resting work.

One of Julie’s goals in coming to Switzerland was to get one of their special Pressure Cookers. As we have learned that all the shops will be closed tomorrow, being Sunday, I suggest that she pick one up today which she does as she demonstrates when she finally returns. What’s more, Julie has an innovative idea for dinner for us. This is to go to one of the Department stores which has a large food hall with a number of dining areas much like David Jones in Melbourne but much larger.

Julie had ordered a Caesar salad with Salmon. I watched in alarm as the cook cut-up a Chicken fillet to put on it. I think our server recognised it and immediately took it back to the cook who was horribly chagrined at his mistake. He put on a piece of Salmon for a replacement. I was concerned that it was on the grill way too long, but he did get it right.

At the end of the meal, Julie said to the server that She wanted an Irish Coffee. The server, who was an absolutely delightful girl, originally from Guatemala, said they did not have that but then disappeared for quite a while to see what she could do. Eventually, after going to several of the different serving areas in the Food Hall, she cam back with this:

We walk around the store to get some supplies.

We gather our purchases and walk back to the flat. Julie decides to take a circuitous route. Along the way there is a cacophony of all the church bells in the area sounding.