Swiss Attractions | Singapore Travel Photo Blog @ travelerfolio.com

The “Amazing Race” to Geneva

We were in “Amazing Race”. We were confused with the direction to Paris Orly Airport for the morning flight and we were still at the train station waiting for the train to arrive, just 45-min before the flight took off! We were very worried that we might miss the flight to Geneva and we left the platform, thinking of taking a cab instead. But the train officer suggested that a cab could even take a longer time to reach the airport as there could be heavy traffic along the way. Left with no other choice, we had to try our luck.

Luck was on our side. We managed to check in very late, just 20-min before the plane took off. The whole plane was simply waiting for the three of us to go on board. And guess what? Just before I could board the plane, the custom officer detected that I was carrying a Swiss knife in my sling bag! How could this happen to me?! The officer told me that she had to drop it into the bin, if not I need to check in the Swiss knife. To save my Swiss knife, I raced all the way back to the luggage check-in point and luckily, the luggage officers were very helpful to assist me. Cool enough, they even put my small Swiss knife into a BIG and empty carton box for check in.

At last, we boarded the plane – Easy Jet. It was a smooth flight that took less than an hour to reach Geneva, Switzerland.

At the Geneva Airport immigration custom, I had a unpleasant experience with the immigration officer. He asked me to if I had money and credit cards, and I readily showed them to him. After checking my details, he permitted my entry to Switzerland, but I saw him sniggering behind me with his colleague.

We wandered around Geneva, a French-speaking town. Anyway, there wasn’t much for us to see in Geneva within a short period of time, so we strolled in the park, happily snapping photos after a stressful morning rushing for the flight.

Quite amusing to see the four men in black sitting and eating uniformly.

The iconic water jet soaring skyward at the harbour.

We took the next train to our hostel in Interlaken.

Our resort in Interlaken, sweet heaven!

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Mt Schilthorn, the 007 James Bond Mt.

We set out for our first mountain trip at the famous “007 James Bond Mountain” – Mt. Schilthorn in the Jungfrau Region. The Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn region is listed in UNESCO World Heritage.

We took a cable car from Gimmelwald to Mürren, a beautiful, idyllic and traffic-free mountain village, nestled amidst the enchanting mountain scenery. We hardly saw any villagers there, or perhaps it was spring, not for winter sports and thus, lesser tourists. We strolled to the next cable car station to bring us up to our destination.

Mt. Schilthorn soars to 3000m high and is the Bernese Oberlands highest altitude skiing area. The steep snowy slopes provided the perfect location for thrilling action scenes in the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service“.

We were actually quite disappointed as we were within an enclosed area away from the snow and the enclosure was just a small area around the revolving restaurant. Rules are meant to break! We playfully crossed over the railings but realized the danger as the steps were slippery and the slope was steep.

It was the first time we saw snow, but the snow was the rough type, not so nice.

Though no snow-playing activity for us, the panoramic alpine views is superb! We could see Jungfrau and other mountains like Mönch and Eiger in the Swiss Alps. We were soaking up the breathtaking mountain sceneries, while withstanding the icy mountain winds blowing to us from all directions!

At Touristorama, we watched the trailers of the James Bond Film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” shot at Mt. Schilthorn, starring George Lazenby as James Bond.

Exploring the Swiss alpine beauty!

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Exploring the Swiss Alpine Beauty

We headed halfway down from Mt. Schilthorn to Mürren, at about 1,650m above sea level, to explore the peaceful alpine meadows. Every angle of the mountainous view is picturesque!

Drinking spring water fresh from the Swiss alps!

There seemed to be many Indian tourists in the area. We got into a cable car packed with an Indian family. The eldest man was happily singing and dancing with Indian style, followed by the other family members. The whole family was dancing and singing in the small cable car, leaving the three of us stood still at a corner… One big happy family.

Breathtaking train ride sceneries…

We returned to Interlaken and bought some souvenirs like the mini cow bells and a small handmade cuckoo clock that cost me around S$60 (In 2003, Swiss Franc 1.35 = S$1). Since we left Singapore, food was really boring. Everyday was all about eating hard bread! I thought if I were to throw the hard bread at someone’s face, it could cause serious injury. We had irregular meals everyday.

The park near our hostel.

Mt. Titlis, my favourite mountain!

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Mt Titlis is superb!

Having not enough “FEEL” of mountains yet after the James Bond Mt trip, we went up to Mt Titlis, while our friend took the free cruise ride using the Swiss Pass. Going Mt Titlis from Interlaken took us half a day long but scenic train ride. It was never boring taking train rides in Switzerland, when beautiful scenes flashed across the window in every turn and bend.

By the time we reached Mt Titlis, it was around 12pm. We took a cable car up along the fabulous mountain slopes.

We had enjoyed ourselves very much at Mt Titlis! Beautiful snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze while we were joyfully playing with snow. Soon, the snowfall became heavier and many visitors took shelter in the visitor centre. We had no idea when the heavy snowfall would stop; we lumbered our way in the heavy snowfall with very low visibility to the nearby glacier cave.

I had never seen ice so thick like those in the glacier cave. We were like frozen meat in a huge freezer.

We walked carefully through a lonely tunnel in the cave, and at that point, we were 45m under rock and ice. I was already very careful with my steps, but I still fell quite hard onto the floor as it was very slippery with ice.

Once out of the glacier cave, we rode the Ice Flyer chairlift to the Titlis Glacier Park.

This huge rock made me felt that I was inside the Chinese martial arts movie, where the highly skilled swordsmen duelled around the rock…

We had a fun time sliding down a specially prepared run on large tyres. Everything was free.

The ascent back to the top of the runway was quite effortless with the Magic Carpet mowing walkway.

The spectacular views of the mountain range! A moment ago, we were admiring the snow-capped mountains at the valley; then we were above the enchanting snow-capped mountains! We were at about 3020m above sea level, with the best mountain view we have ever seen.

Wanted to create a mini snowman but it turned out to appear more like a snow duck!

We were miserably cold when gust of cold mountain wind s blew us, and our light shoes were wet on the thick snow. We also experienced altitude sickness: I felt pressure on my nose bridge and Jacky had a bad headache. We wanted to go Lucern but due to tight train schedule, we had to give it a miss.

Descending Mt. Titlis, with yet another awesome mountainous view.

On our way back in a cable car, an English tourist had a small talk with us. He asked where we came from. When we replied “Singapore”, he stared at us with his eyes popping out and exclaimed “SAA-ARRRS”! (SARS = Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.) From that day onward, whoever asked where we came from, we would not say anything; if they thought we were Japanese, we just agreed with them!

The sky had turned dark, seemingly with a storm approaching soon.