Day One

I finally arrived in Chur, my first destination, right on time about 2:30 this afternoon.  The hotel is about three blocks from the train station.  It was lightly snowing as I walked through “town” to the hotel.  I was pretty beat and wanted to get into bed so I didn’t stop but I look forward to a more leisurely visit.  Especially to the chocolatier.  The hotel room is very small (quaint) and a single bed ‘cuz I guess that’s what I ordered.  It’s fine.  Very clean.  A lot of knotty pine.  I got the internet working and called Mom to wish her a happy birthday.  It was still a bit too early to call Marlow but I decided to try to get to sleep.  So I slept until 6 pm when the church bells next door woke me.  I plan to go down to dinner at the hotel this evening.

The train travel today was quite varied.  In the longest train from Munich I had a six-seat compartment generally to myself.  I boarded the train in Munich at 8:45 about 30 minutes before departure and was able to sprawl out and even get a bit of rest. After about 1.5 hours from Munich the train started climbing towards the Alps.  And as we reached higher elevations the snow started to appear (see photo above).  And there was a lot of snow.  In places the snow looked to be about three-feet high on the roofs of the chalets we passed.  The train also slowed down a bit.  But these were not really very high mountains.  We passed cross country skiers and cows.  It was pretty overcast for the entire trip so I couldn’t see any majestic peaks in the distance.  The first train then descended quickly to Lindau which is on the Bodensee and at the German Austrian Swiss border.  

The next train was a swiss train that really is a commuting train of sorts that runs along the lake (Bodensee) from Lindau in Germany, through a few towns in Austria and finally arrived after 30 minutes in St. Margrethen where I changed to the third train.  After another hour on the train I arrived in Chur.  The swiss trains were newer and cleaner than the german train and had huge windows.  


The weather report seems to say that tomorrow will be partially sunny.