(Europe Sep 2015) Day 8: Visit Bern and Interlaken. Stay at Lauterbrunnen (Part 1 Bern)

Day 8 (10 Sep 2015): Visit Bern and Interlaken. Stay at Lauterbrunnen (Switzerland)

(Part 1 Bern)

This day's schedule:

0723-0809 Colmar to Basel via train

0831-0927 Basel to Bern via train

Deposit luggage at Bern station (E9)

Walk around Bern + Lunch

1404-1457 Bern to Interlaken via train

1540-1710 Visit Harder Kulm observatory point

1735-1815 Supermarket shopping

1835-1855 Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen via train

Check in hostel + dinner of cup noodles

In the morning, we took an early train from Colmar to Basel in Switzerland. 

Bye Colmar, bye France (bye my beloved bear...)

 Arrival at Basel station in Switzerland.

Since we didn't had much time before having to catch our train transfer at Basel station, so my husband just barely had enough time to buy some breakfast (croissants I think) and we dashed to catch our next train from Basel to Bern.

Although some trains have luggage racks for you to put your big luggage bags that wouldn't fit on the overhead rack, but don't assume that the trains that you'll be taking will have those racks.

In times when there's no luggage racks, what we did (since my husband's luggage bag is too big for the overhead racks) was to slot the bag in the gap in between 2 back-to-back seats. 

Dining car on this train.

 Arrival at Bern station.

Bern station.

slabs of chocolates

 After having so much trouble with locating locker services in France, it was a good sight seeing these lockers at Bern station.

We chose the biggest locker (costs E9) and we managed to squeeze both our luggage bags into the same locker. :)

And thus, we began our short walkabout in Bern.

In front of Bern train station.

The buildings look really sturdy.

 There are shops long the streets, and even if it rains, you can just walk in the covered walkway.

We came across a street market, am not sure if they operate daily or not though.

We came across a few chess sets in the parks and gardens during our short visit here.

Loved the views from the bridges. 

In the 10mins before the clock chimes for the hour, you will see many tourists crowding around the area waiting for the chime.

The underground shelters are converted into shops

Somehow, we always end up having gelato pretty often whenever we are at Europe.

There's a house here which used to be Einstein's apartment. But since we need to grab lunch before catching our next train, so we didn't have time to visit this place.

Einstein apartment

 Found a nice restaurant not too far from the station to have our lunch. This also starts my consecutive days of wiener schnitzel meals.  Switzerland's food consists of alot of sausages, potatoes, and cheese...which are things which I don't really eat much of, so I always end up eating Schnitzel in Switzerland.  Schnitzel is breaded meat fillet. 

Meals in Switzerland is also expensive. We usually spend around 50-60 Euros per meal for 2 pax's main course + drinks.  Main courses are around 20-30 Euros average.  

Loved this!

Husband loved this!

Since I love to eat prawns, so even though we just had lunch, but I had to buy the 5 piece shrimps from McDonalds before we catch our train.

Go to previous entry: Day 7 Paris

Go to next entry: Day 8 Visit Bern, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen (Part 2)

(Europe Sep 2015) Day 7: Visit Paris. Stay at Colmar

Day 7 (9 Sep 2015): Visit Paris. Stay at Colmar

This day's breakdown:

1015-1130 Filed report at Paris's Montparnasse police station 

1230-1415 Visited Objet Trouve's office near Convention metro station (about 5-7mins walk) 

1430-1530 Lunch near Convention metro station

1530-1700 View of Eiffel Tower and short teabreak

1730-1920 Slacked at hotel lobby using the hotel's wifi 

1930-1955 Took Metro to Gare Lyon to catch our train to Colmar

2023-2318 Gare Lyon to Mulhouse via TGV

2330-2357 Mulhouse to Colmar via TER train

0020 Finally checked-in at hotel at Colmar

Our original plan was to take an early morning TGV train from Paris to Colmar and spend the entire day visiting and exploring Colmar.  

But in the end, we decided to exhaust all of our options (since it was our last day at Paris) to try to locate my husband's backpack (especially my bear) before leaving Paris on this day.

So we wasted our morning train's tickets, and bought an expensive train ticket (last TGV train from Paris towards Colmar), and spend the day at Police station and the Lost and Found office in Paris.

Although each of the major stations (eg. Montparnasse station) have their own Lost and Found counter, but there's also a general Lost and Found office in Paris (The Objet Trouve's office) that's about 5-7mins walk from Convention Metro station.

I know there's almost no chance of finding my bear back, but still, we just want to try our best and make sure that all of our options were exhausted before leaving Paris on this day.

So in the morning, we visited the police station at near Montparnasse station (again) to check with their lost and found, and also see if they caught anyone lately with our backpack...after spending more than an hour there (and also chatting with some fellow tourists in the waiting room who also had their belongings and money stolen), we left the police station still feeling dejected. 

Then we took a short Metro ride to Convention station and visited the Objet Trouves office. We had to file up a form for our lost article, and they said it's still too early for any news of the item since it usually takes at least 1 week for lost articles to be transferred there.  So we just filled and submitted the form, and left.  

After a mentally exhausting morning, we finally have some time to sit down and have lunch near Convention station.

Since we didn't plan to have this entire day at Paris, plus we didn't really have the mood to do much sightseeing, so we decided to just spend the rest of the day to see Eiffel Tower, and then relax at our hotel lobby while waiting to catch our evening train.

Therefore, we took the metro from Convention to Trocadero, where we can see a good view of Eiffel Tower.  Since we've already been up to Eiffel Tower on our previous trip many years ago, so we didn't feel the need to join the crowd and go up to Eiffel Tower again.

It was really hot, both of us were sweating by now.  So we found a cafe about 5 mins walk from the station and sat down to to some cold drinks and chocolate fondant and crepe.

We then went back to our hotel to use the hotel's wifi at the lobby area to file for lost article online too, since the international data SIM card which we bought for this trip was also lost since it was in the backpack that was stolen.  

Soon, it was time to go catch our evening train. We bought some food and drinks from the station at Gare Lyon, and then boarded the train towards Mulhouse, which we will then transfer to another train to reach Colmar.

Gare Lyon

The TER train which we took from Mulhouse to Colmar.

Bicycle rack onboard the train.

 It was midnight by the time we arrived at Colmar. 

After walking about 10mins, we finally found our hotel for the night.

It would just be a few more hours of sleep here until we have to catch our early morning train leaving France and headed for Switzerland.

Go to previous entry: Day 6 Visit St Malo /

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