November 23, 2012
This is a travel day, from Florence to Zurich. The first leg was from Florence to Milan by high speed train and again, we reached 300 km/h at times but mostly we were only doing 275-280 km/h (!). The second step - from Milan to Zurich - was a different story. I could never figure out exactly why but there is a tension/angst between the Italian railway and the Swiss railway, atleast where the Milan-Zurich service is concerned. The Italians will not run their train to Zurich and the Swiss will not run their train to Milan so at the border town of Chiasso everyone gets off the Italian (or Swiss if your going the other way) train and transfer to a Swiss train. Of course this causes delays which compound over the day (there are several services per day) which in my case meant the train was 25 minutes late leaving Milan and wound up causing a 35 min delay getting into Zurich. Most of the trip from Chiasso was in the dark, which was unfortunate as it was through the lake country and the Gotthard rail tunnel and along the western shore of Lake Zurich.
Anyway, after arriving in Zurich it was easy to get to the hotel as the directions provide on the web site were very good and easy to follow. Tomorrow, I have a bus tour scheduled in the afternoon, so I may spend the morning walking through town.
Doc
This is a travel day, from Florence to Zurich. The first leg was from Florence to Milan by high speed train and again, we reached 300 km/h at times but mostly we were only doing 275-280 km/h (!). The second step - from Milan to Zurich - was a different story. I could never figure out exactly why but there is a tension/angst between the Italian railway and the Swiss railway, atleast where the Milan-Zurich service is concerned. The Italians will not run their train to Zurich and the Swiss will not run their train to Milan so at the border town of Chiasso everyone gets off the Italian (or Swiss if your going the other way) train and transfer to a Swiss train. Of course this causes delays which compound over the day (there are several services per day) which in my case meant the train was 25 minutes late leaving Milan and wound up causing a 35 min delay getting into Zurich. Most of the trip from Chiasso was in the dark, which was unfortunate as it was through the lake country and the Gotthard rail tunnel and along the western shore of Lake Zurich.
Anyway, after arriving in Zurich it was easy to get to the hotel as the directions provide on the web site were very good and easy to follow. Tomorrow, I have a bus tour scheduled in the afternoon, so I may spend the morning walking through town.
Doc
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