Day 14 - Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

This morning we checked out of our hotel and took the 9:30 train to Interlaken. All along I have used the DB train app to plan our trips because it allows me to save it in my calendar for when I don't have wifi. This has been the first time it was wrong. It said we were supposed to catch the train to Bern on platform 5, but when we got their the sign for the train said "do not board". That should have been a clue that we were on the wrong platform, considering the time between trains was only about 6 min. Sure enough, our train was on the next platform pulling away as we got there. Thankfully we have all day.

I had to take some final pictures of those amazing snow capped peaks.

We made it on to the next train to Zurich. This was a double decker train. The upper deck was pretty nice. Besides regular seats, it had a lounge type of seating. Which something to note, you really have to look at the cars to see which is first class. In some case the whole car is first class. In others,only the upper deck may be. 

We took the train all the way to the Zurich airport to check it out, and to get a ride to our hotel which was close. Zurich is very confusing. They have three different check-in areas all spread out. We were just trying to figure out where we needed to go I the morning. 

Caught the hotel shuttle to the Ibis hotel. We wanted to have lunch at the hotel, but they were done serving lunch, which is an important point to make. In Europe, restaurants and shops typically close their doors from 2:30 - 5pm. We're so used to our hotel restaurants never closing. We were able to order a bowl of penne pasta and meat sauce from the bar on their "snack" menu. After that, we decided to take it easy. The area we were in was more like the industrial area of Zurich north of the main city. 

Around dinner time we went down to the restaurant only to find out they were serving a buffet because a large group of about 100, all wearing white T-shirts saying Brasil Tourismo, had decided to eat in the restaurant, and the hotel was not interested in serving individual meals. Guess what the main course was...penne pasta. So we went for a little walk and found a pizzeria.  

Travel Tip:

Get to the train station early enough so you can get a print out of your connections. Having the train schedule on my phone is helpful, but it is not always right. And you don't get a lot of time to read the schedules posted on the platforms.