Luzern; Thursday, 31 July, 2008

After all the “fun” of my travels through Poland with the “On Time” trains, it was something of a relief, but not a surprise, to be in the hands of the ruthlessly efficient German and Swiss transport networks.

The plane was about 10 minutes late leaving because of problems being caused across Europe to air-traffic control by the Lufthansa strike which was going on (and which saw long queues of people at the Lufthansa ticket desk and a very full flight for me!) In the end we made it all up and landed at Zurich 10 minutes early.

A quick flight through the airport was brought to a shuddering halt when I got to the baggage hall to discover that there would be a 25 minute wait for the bags (the little screens said so, and to within a minute or so they were right!) Having collected my luggage and made it through customs unmolested (the last time I landed at Zurich I got pulled over) I quickly headed for the train station, purchased my Half Price card (99 SFr and halves the cost of all your transport in Switzerland for the month!) and a ticket to Luzern and was surprised to find myself on a train that I seriously thought I would not make.

A little over an hour later, and on-time to the second, the train glided into Luzern station. I wandered through town to the hotel, checked in and dropped of my stuff and then went for a long wander through town, before heading back for a good nights sleep and an early morning.