Winter Trekking November 3, 2006

Up at 5:30 and out of the door at 20 minutes till 7 we carefully navigated the snow-covered downhill path to the station. Our bus was there and we were soon sloshing our way toward Salzberg which is only about 45 minutes away. Safely at the station, we hoped the iffy part of today’s journey was behind us although we still have another seven hours to go- this will be by train which is not effected by normal snow fall.

We boarded our train a few minutes before 11 AM and were on our way through an Austrian countryside blanketed in snow. The further we went the harder it snowed with visibility from the observation car windows being only a couple of hundred feet at times. It is certainly a change from our travel the last few months. The excitement for the day was a technical problem with the train’s engine and it had to be switched out when we pulled into Worgl. We were now almost an hour behind schedule which we found to be unusual on European trains.

By the time we reached Zurich the snow was only visible on distant mountainsides but as we walked across the platform to change trains we found the air was still cold. The train to Bern was packed with Friday evening commuters as we had missed our scheduled train due to the earlier delay but we found seats for the one hour ride.

Once at the Bern Central Station it was time to play our ongoing game of find-the-hotel. The game is made more challenging when we arrive at a new town in the dark as we had tonight. We tried to buy a map and found we had forgot that now we needed Swiss Francs instead of the Euros we have been using since Ireland. A quick trip to an ATM and a stop at the Kiosk convenience store and we were off…off wandering around the station looking for the correct exit. At last we found it, using a compass, and after a kilometer or so walk we were at the Astoria Hotel. Believe me the name is grander than the place.