France, Switzerland & Austria by Train

Prior to our trip to Switzerland, I did some careful reading to avoid Swiss tourist traps and hoped to make our experience as genuine as possible. For that reason, we stayed clear of the fancy resort towns like St. Moritz and headed for the more rugged region of Berner Oberland.

Berner Oberland is located in the south central part of Switzerland. For years, it has lagged behind other parts of Switzerland in tourist infrastructure and to this day it remains a bit more genuine. An old resort town of Interlaken, considered the capital of extreme sports like hand gliding, is the main hub of the region and that was our destination on the train from Lucerne. Upon arrival in Interlaken, we left the public Swiss train system and transferred onto a small private narrow-gauge railroad to take us high into the mountains. The private railroad does not accept the Eurail passes, but we did get a discount. Our idea was to take the train up to the Kleine Scheidegg train station and then hike down to Wengen. This was to be our great Alpine hike and we really looked forward to it.

The adventure begun in Interlaken, where we got onto our "mini-train." The train tracks then followed the valley floor up to the resort town of Grindelwald and then up the mountain slopes to Kleine Scheidegg (see accompanying panorama). Long time before we arrived at our destination, I could see Ana was falling in love with the Alps. The dramatic sight of countless grey peaks interrupted by beautiful valleys dotted with shepherd huts gave us an awesome introduction to these majestic mountains. Kleine Scheidegg turned out to be a great destination. The entire place consists of four buildings (including the train depot) located at 2061 m above the sea level and at the foot of a shear wall of rock that soars 2300 m (one mile and a half!) straight up over the village. Unfortunately, by that time we lost the sun and the place filled with clouds obstructing the full view.

We both felt great at Kleine Scheidegg. Though the weather precluded our dream Alpine hike, we still took a stroll down the trail to fully experience these mountains. Only few hundred yards from the train station, we were fully immersed in the local reality of misty rocks, green meadows and the distant sounds of cowbells. Despite the high altitude, the locals rely on the plush Alpine grass to feed their cows. The animals graze unrestricted and wonder great distances, only to be found by the sound of their distinctive bells. I collected some Alpine flowers for my wonderful wife, who followed me all the way to the "top of Europe," and returned to the train station for a hearty Swiss sausage soup.

Lucerne is a city in central Switzerland located on the Reuss River near the shores of Lake Lucerne. At just over 60,000 inhabitants, it is the size of a small Midwestern town, but far more interesting. The town became an important trading post after opening of a trade route through the Alps in the 13th century and now it is famous for its fairytale Swiss architecture. Its impeccable streets are lined with ritzy stores and its chocolate shops entice people from all over the world. Lucerne's most famous landmark is the wooden Chapel Bridge, which has spanned the Reuss since 1333.

We spent the morning strolling through the lakefront downtown. The lakefront is interesting, though it is small and once you cross the Chapel Bridge and spend some time around the shore, there are not too many other places to go. We spent about two hours soaking in the cosmopolitan Switzerland, purchased a fine pastry for lunch and headed off for the mountains.

How to use (and buy) Eurail Train Passes.

Needless to say, European trains are superb. They are fast, on-time, clean and comfortable. They also go nearly everywhere. Of recent, low-cost airlines have become exceedingly popular in Europe and you can actually fly from London to Germany for 10 bucks on a promotional airfare. Since I was eighteen, though, I wanted to see Europe using the train pass and that's what we set out to do this time. Back then, the passes seemed so expensive for my McDonald's salary budget. Being thirty, I decided to bite the bullet and fulfill my dream.

We are both very happy that we took the trains. Unlike flying, taking the train offers great opportunity to see the land you are traveling through and that was important to us. In the end, we zoomed in the fast supertrains through French countryside, slowly climbed the narrow-track rail up the Swiss peaks and dined in style on an Austrian express. It was great and all for one price of the rail pass. There are 27 European countries participating in the rail pass system and you can buy travel in any of these countries. All rail passes are administered by the same company, Eurail, and though you can buy them through many different websites, the pricing and services are all the same. The only difference in shopping at different websites are the additional perks they send along and the shipping charge (which is usually free anyway). The sites I looked at were www.railpass.com and www.raileurope.com  There is a great variety of passes, from a single-country three day pass to a 15-country one month pass. Most passes are for the first class travel and the sites are excellent at describing all the categories. We got the four-country regional 5 day pass, which cost us about 300 bucks each. That is a bargain, considering that any given trip (like Lyon-Geneva, for example) on our 5 day itinerary would cost about 100 bucks each. French and Swiss trains are great, but they are expensive.

One essential tool in planning the train travel is access to train schedules. They send one with the pass usually, but nothing beats the Travelocity train service at www.travelocity.com where I planned the entire trip. Now, the passes will get you the tickets on the train, but they won't get you reservations, which are needed for the French TGV supertrains, as well as for all sleeper trains. In other words, the passes do not guarantee a seat on any given train and if you have tight schedule, you run some risk of not getting the train you want. Travelocity will sell you reservations at $11 a seat, which can add up. We chose to risk it and not buy any reservations except the sleeper train from Austria to Poland. It turned out to be a good idea. The TGV reservations were only 3 euros for both of us and these trains run so frequently that they were quite empty in the middle of peak summer season. So, don't get any reservations online, but purchase them as soon as you can once you get to your destination. Also, make sure to purchase the pass well in advance, as it has to be mailed to you. You can not buy it in Europe, since it is designed to attract visitors to the Old Continent, and not to provide savings for those who are already there. Once you get to your first station, validate the pass at the ticket window (need the passport for that) and off you go!

Located right in the center of Europe, Austria is a great transit country. Nowadays everyone flies, but once you have a Eurail train pass, it is much cheaper (and more interesting) to take the train. Here is our experience of travel from Switzerland to Poland.

We knew from the beginning that we will not be seeing much of Austria during the trip. Initially, I wanted to fly from Zurich to Warsaw, but the flights were very expensive. Apparently, neither city got the memo about the low-fare revolution and the cheapest flight I found was about 400 dollars one way. I found this to be an unnecessary expense and we planned the train journey instead. It was to be long, but we would at least see some of the Austrian countryside. Also, the train was to be much cheaper, because Austrian rail was covered under our Railpass. In 2005, Poland and Czech Republic were not covered (they will be starting 2006), so I needed to pay extra for the Vienna-Warsaw portion of the trip. Austrian train was no less fancy than the Swiss or the French, though it was no TGV when it came to speed. Interestingly, whereas so far we have always found ourselves in the top cabin due to our first class Rail Passes, the Austrian train had Executive Class with plush leather seats and beautiful interior. We were not allowed anywhere near those.

The train ride was very interesting for two reasons. First, it gave me the first hand look at the changing landscape of Austria, as it shifted from the western Alpine regions to the eastern low-lands. Everything from architecture to the size of the cities followed that change, making western Austria more beautiful and the eastern part of the country more populated. Second reason had to do with the highlight of the ride, which was lunch in the stately dining car. The dining car was basically a fully-featured restaurant on wheels, complete with reservation requirements and stuffy-looking waiters. We got our reservation for 4 o'clock and got "great window seats" (no other seats available, of course). We indulged ourselves to a fine meal, paid a small fortune for it and went back to our cabin to await Vienna.

We arrived in Vienna's Westbanhoff Station with several hours to spare before our next train. Initially, we thought of checking out the imperial center of town, but decided against it due to time constraints. Instead, we opted to take the tramway #18 straight to the Sudbanhoff Station and wait there. We had late dinner consisting of a typical Austrian pork schnitzel, and by 10 pm found our Warsaw train waiting on one of the platforms.

In the old communist times in Poland, there existed few iconic destinations. At the time of restricted borders and even more restricted wallets, the mere mention of certain travel made everyone excited. The Holy Grail of all tickets was of course the flight ticket to New York on the Polish LOT airlines. Very closely behind, however, stood the train ticket on the PKP (Polish National Railways) overnight train to Vienna. Vienna represented the promise of the West and only the select few could ever dream of being on that train. Carrying the proud name of Chopin, this train represented the height of Polish rail travel and though it has lost much of its allure nowadays, it still is a great ride. Now you will understand my excitement when, opening a FedEx package in late June, I found two Chopin tickets lying in my hands.

I bought the tickets through Travelocity, which aside from the usual airfare tickets, has a great train section as well. There is a great variety of sleeper trains in Europe. The cheapest ones are called couchettes and house six simple beds in each cabin. On the other side of the spectrum are fancy hotel trains in the mold of the famous Orient Express. In between these two are sleeper trains. Sleeper train cabins house three beds instead of six. We did not feel like sharing the cabin with anyone, so we actually booked the whole compartment. We effectively paid for three spots on the train, but it was worth it - we had a great cabin all to ourselves. It is important to note that no rail pass is going to cover any couchette or sleeper trains. To take these you need to pay an extra reservation fee (cheap) and the sleeper fee (about $100 bucks per person from Vienna to Warsaw, for example). Though not the cheapest form of travel, using sleeper trains does eliminate the need for hotels for that night and one can board the train in Amsterdam and wake up in Rome.

The train ride was great. We spent some time talking and then fell asleep to wake up in Warsaw the next day.