Europe Trip - Day 10 (20-Sept-2012)

Day 10 - Trip to Jungfraujoch - Europe's highest railway !

We woke up early to have a head start for our trip to Jungfraujoch which would have a heavy influx of tourists. Though there were trains by the hour, we had read that they were bound to be crowded. We had a quick bath and headed out towards the station. We ensured that we were dressed in layers as it was bound to get cold as we progressed in altitude. We also packed extra gloves, socks and mufflers in case we got wet. We bought a few buns and croissants at the Coop store near the station for breakfast and got some coffee as well. The round trip tickets to Jungfraujoch turned out to be expensive even with the Swiss pass at about 160 Euros per person ! ( Swiss pass holders were entitled to a 25% discount). This was the centenary year for the Jungfraugh Bahn or the Jungfrau railway, so they were giving away special Jungfraujoch passports along with the tickets. These red booklets contained trivia and details of how the railway was built over years by exploding out a tunnel through the mountains. We later discovered that we could stamp these passports with the date and time at the destination! That was cool. They even handed out a train timetable and the routes we could take. We had to change 3 trains to reach the top. Starting from Interlaken-Ost with the Bernese Oberland Railway, we could either go to Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald, and then change to the Wengernalp Railway. The next stop would be Kleine-Scheidegg which is the starting point for the Jungrfrau railway leading to Jungfraujoch.

Route map ( courtesy - Internet )

We had read that since the tickets are really expensive, its very important to have a good weather to enjoy the views and also the snow park, otherwise it would be a waste of money. Also the journey was an enjoyable experience with the various trains offering stunning views. We were blessed with a sunny and clear sky and were just an hour late from our plan of taking the train at 7:30 and we decided to proceed towards Lauterbrunnen. The train was filled with tourists and there were people at the station to direct the tourists towards the right train. It was all very well organized. We found that the snack tables in the train had the route map too! 

Snack table

All set !

First leg of the journey

From Lauterbrunnen, we took a train to Kleine-Scheidegg.

The second train

We were now ready for the last leg of the train journey on the Jungrfau railway from Kleine-Scheidegg.

The final journey through Jungfrau bahn

Most of this route is through the mountain tunnel. There are 2 stops on the way, where the train stops for 5 mins and tourists can get down for a restroom break and also to enjoy some mountain views through huge glass windows. The first stop is at Eigerwand is located at a height of 2865m ( Eiger Wall ) and from Wikipedia – "There is a window about 8 m long and a metre high halfway up the face. The windows have been placed in holes used to remove excavated rock from the tunnel during construction, and are also occasionally used as access points, by climbers, and also rescue parties. This window was used for one of the final scenes of a Clint Eastwood spy movie, The Eiger Sanction."

The next stop is at Eismeer (Sea of Ice) which again has windows for viewing the mountains. We found that these viewpoints were really cold as there were tunnels in the mountain with no sunlight. 

After about a 50 min ride, we finally reached Jungfraujoch which is the highest railway station in Europe and is also called as the “Top of Europe”. We were excited ! The temperature reading said it was -2.9 C. Brrrrrr !!! We also took a very much touristy Jungfrau picture at the entrance.

At the station

Brrrrr !

A "Must take" picture !

As we bustled into the main complex from the railway station, we saw loads and loads of tourists. And the restaurants and cafes were making brisk business. We decided to stop for a hot drink before starting the adventures for the day. We went to the first café and the guy at the counter asked us if we wanted “Masala Chai” !! Indian tourists are very popular in Swiss. We asked for a hot chocolate which made him smile. I was really keen on having only chocolate while in Switzerland. The chocolate was warm and yummy. We got a map of the attractions at Jungfrau and decided to visit the Sphinx or the observatory first.

From the Sphinx

A quick elevator ride took us to Sphinx, which had a viewing platform and the observatory. We read the highest radio station in Europe is installed here! Since the viewpoint is located at a height, there was a good cold breeze and we couldn’t stand out in the open for long. We took some pictures and headed back in. 

Our next stop was the Snow Fun. We had seen lot of pictures of this and were looking forward to our share of fun and frolic in the snow. As we stepped out in the open, we were hit by a blast of sunlight. We couldn’t have stepped out without our sunglasses. Thankfully we had rubbed sunblock on our faces. This was a flat expanse of snow with various snow rides like tyroliene, snow tubes, sledging, skiing etc. We took a few pictures here and also tried scooping up the snow. I even managed to take off my jacket and gloves for a while.

Conveyor belt

We didn’t try the Tyrolienne at first and headed towards the snow tubes. It looked like fun to slide in the snow on a rubber tube. We discovered that for 15CHF, we would get unlimited rides on the snow tube and also the sledges. We quickly bought 2 tickets and started the fun. They had a neat conveyer belt to carry the snow tube or the sledge back to the starting point.

The snow tubing turned out to be good fun with a couple of minor incidents. One was a head to head collision with another guy who was sliding behind me. I screamed at the sudden impact and he was so worried about me being alright! The next incident was that I flew off the sledge and fell on my face on the snow. Thankfully it didn’t hurt at all and I was more worried about my new sunglasses and bag being thrown away in the snow. After several rounds of snow tubing and sledging we were ready to head back. It was almost 1PM and we were hungry with all the activity. 

Snow tubes

Sledge

Hubby wanted to try the Tyrolienne now and I let it pass. I was too tired to enjoy it and was also feeling lazy about having to walk back from the drop off point. This was an adventure sport where you can zip across on a rope and land on the snow. ( Similar to river crossing, but we would proceed downhill in this case ). A one way ticket was 15CHF, but worth the fun and excitement. Hubby came back smiling after his first adventure sport!

Ready to fly !

Back to the ground

We then proceed to the Ice palace. On the way we came across the newly built “Alpine Sensation” which was opened newly to commemorate the centenary of the Jungfrau railway. Its 250 meters long and connects the Sphinx to the Ice palace. There is a moving walkway with the caverns depicting the history of Jungfrau railway and tourism. The Ice palace is a 1000 sq meters of area in a cavern cut out by hand using ice axes and saws. This needs to be constantly cut as the warmth of the visitors make the ice melt. The temperature is artificially maintained at -3 degrees at all times. We were greeted with various sculptures Polar bears, a new sculpture of Sherlock Homles ( just installed 10 days back ) and our dear friend “Scrat” ( from the Ice age movie series ) frozen in a block of ice ! We also took another “must shoot” Jungrfrau picture here as done by most visitors. The ice palace was really cold and it was tough to walk on the slippery ice but they had a railing built throughout the palace for support. 

Ice carvings

Ready to start the next Ice age !

Sherlock Holmes, who arrived only on 11th sept 2012 !

Another touristy picture to complete the outing 

The next stop was to visit the Plateau. An elevator took us to the Plateau which offers panoramic views of the swiss alps on a clear day. We saw that the exit to the plateau was a bit slippery ( old ice ) and we saw a few people skid and fall. Luckily we held on to a rope and got into the open snow. The Swiss flag marks this place and we felt that it was much colder and windy than the other regions – sphinx and snow fun. After a few pictures we headed inside, the wind and cold was too much to bear for long.

Swiss flag at the plateau

A picture postcard view

We headed in for a quick snack and found that the food was really expensive. We managed to get a vegetarian meal of noodles and spring rolls. I also got a huge bar of nestle chocobar called Mega and it was really huge and creamy! It was a great experience eating ice cream on the top of Europe. We made the mistake of forgetting to carry a water bottle, so we were very dehydrated. We picked up a small 500 ml bottle at a huge price of 5 Euros to survive the rest of the journey.

Mega bar !

We got our special centenary passports stamped with the time and date at a special machine kept for this purpose. We then decided to get some postcards to send home. This would be unique as there was a post office at Jungfraujoch itself, making it not only Europe’s highest railway station, but also the highest post office! We wanted to take the return train at 3:30 PM and had only 10 mins left. We quickly picked 3 postcards, and posted 2 of them to our folks back home. We just had time to board the train back. Due to the snow fun activities, we had wet shoes and socks and were eager to get rid of them soon. We decided to take the route through Grindelwald on the return to experience both the sceneries.  After we got to Interlaken Ost, we again checked if we could visit Harder Kulm as the last funicular back was at 6:20 PM and it was about 5:45 PM now. The lady at the counter said its too late so we were disappointed yet again. We got back to the hotel and freshened up quickly as I didn’t want to miss the watch shopping. We had seen on the previous day that most shops closed early. As we walked along the shops, we saw several parachutes return from sky diving.  We zeroed in on a watch shop and finished the watch shopping. We even got a tax refund, which we could never claim as it had to be done at a customs desk only. It had been a long day and we were too tired and hungry. 

We saw a pizzeria near our hotel and went in for a quick look. The place looked like a bar and was small and dingy, so we decided to pack the pizza and eat in the hotel room. The guy said he can make a custom made vegetarian pizza for us and it was delicious! We finally had a chance to open the bottle of beer we got in Bruges ( Brugse Zot ) and it was very delicious with the pizza. It was time to call it a day, after being at the top of the world!

Europe Trip - Day 9 (19-Sept-2012)

Day 9 - Brussels to Interlaken( Switzerland ) train

Today was an early start day, one of those numerous days where we had an early train to catch. I was a bit nervous about this train or rather had a funny feeling about it for a while and was anxious not to miss it. One of the reasons could be that this was the only direct train from Brussels to Basel and if we missed it, we would have some extra fun!  We had booked the tickets on raileurope.com website and the website told us that this train was valid for the Swiss pass. So we only had to pay the reservation fee for both the legs, Brussels to Basel and Basel to Interlaken. Another worry nagging me was that the pass may turn out to be invalid on the first train. Then I told myself it’s not a big deal and we could always pay any fine if it came to that. We still had our seat reservations. This also meant that we had to validate the Swiss pass at the station before boarding the train. Failing to do so would make the pass invalid. Phew!

I woke up early and had a quick bath. After a short prayer to Lord Ganesh (today is Ganesh chaturti and unfortunately we couldn’t celebrate it due to the train travel), and last minute packing of luggage we were ready. It was quite an effort to pack all the chocolates that we had purchased the previous day and also stuff our dirty laundry. Finally we put all the chocolates in the duffel bag and decided to sort them as we travelled.  Needless to say I was also worried about running around the train stations with heavy bags!  Hubby dear was in no mood to take a bath so early in the morning and in such a cold weather (must have been about 10-12 degrees), so he was ready before me. I took some time to wrap up my ankle in crepe bandage as well. After all I had paid 10 Euros for it, I better use it. With a heavy heart we bid goodbye to our friends. Our 3 days together flew past and we had so much fun. We left at about 6:45 AM and our friend dropped us to the train station, it was the MIDI station again.

We quickly found the station master’s office and got the Swiss pass validated. He wrote the date and stamped the pass. We were just in time for the train to Basel. It was due to depart in 5 mins ! It was interested to note that the train was made up of 2 kinds of coaches. The first half coaches were from the Belgium railways and the 2^nd half from the Swiss railways. We had a vague guess that the only the 2^nd half of the train would go upto Basel. The first half might be delinked on the way. Our ticket said Wagon 5, so we started looking for it. Strangely though, we found all wagon numbers except 5 ! We realized that we have only 1-2 mins left for the train to depart, so we quickly asked a railway staff and he pointed to the coach in front of us. This made me very suspicious as it was the last coach of the Belgium half. Anyway the seats were numbered so we settled down on our reserved seats. As the train pulled off from the platform, we realized that we were very hungry. Along with the chocolates we had packed some buns and biscuits given by my friend, so we ate a few. We assumed that like other trains traveled so far, there would be a food cart and we could grab some coffee and some snack! As time passed it became evident that there was no food cart coming our way, nor was there a pantry in one of the coaches! The hunger and lack of caffeine started showing up on dear hubby. I somehow coaxed him to sleep and started working on my laptop by sorting the photographs of the trip so far.

After about 3 hours we reached Luxembourg station. The train stopped for a while and the bored ( not to mention hungry ) husband stepped out of the train to stretch. As we anticipated, he saw all the coaches ahead of us being delinked. I was hoping that they don’t delink our coach since that also belonged to the Belgian railways. Thankfully our coach ( along with the rest of the train ) moved along and we ate some more of the buns.  The train painfully trudged along which was a stark contrast to the high- speed Thalys. Infact the normal speed train to Amsterdam was also better than this! Also there were innumerable stops on the way.  It was interesting to guess if we were in France or Germany by reading out the station names and trying to figure out the announcements. At one of the stops, a couple of police men got in and then we realized they were doing a border check. They asked for our passports and proceeded. We saw them asking some people to open their suitcases and we were thankful that we got spared. This is the first (and last!!) train on which we had a border check. It probably may be due to Switzerland doing border checks though it is a part of the Schengen region.

One of the next stops turned out to be a painfully long one. There were some announcements made ( none in English ) but we saw all our fellow passengers stay put, so we did not panic. A couple of railway officials from ( SNCF ) came around and instructed all the passengers on this coach to move to the next one. Everyone vacated in a jiffy and we were struggling to pack the laptop, jackets and other miscellaneous items that we had unpacked during the last 3-4 hours. We also struggled to unload the heavy suitcases and get down. Now I was really worried that the train might leave before we go on! We got on to the next coach and saw most of the seats occupied. So we checked the next coach and finally found 2 seats and slowly settled down. Most of the passengers were stretched or sleeping across 2 seats so it was hard to find a good place. Even after 10-15 minutes the train showed no signs of movement. I was totally dismayed. The same officials came around distributing food packets. 

Complementary Lunch Box

Tired and hungry !

They came to us, gave the packs and said this is a complementary lunch for the delay! It was already beyond noon and we were very hungry. The pack had some nuts, water, bread, fruit pulp and a couple of unrecognizable items. We picked what looked (and smelt ) like vegetarian and ate them. When the officials came again, we asked them about the train delay and also mentioned that we had a train to catch from Basel to Interlaken at 2:55. The person didn’t understand English all that well so we showed him the connecting ticket. He looked at it for a long time and then nodded his head with a very grave expression. We realized that he meant that we cannot catch that train! Then he called another guy and said he knows English and we could ask him our questions. Between the two of them, they convinced us that we can catch the next train with the same ticket. I was anyway sure that it would be possible to take the next train since we had the Swiss pass and this ticket was only the seat reservation. Of course this reservation might not be valid on the next train. But overall we were tired of this journey (and hungry) and we wanted to get to the destination fast and the train was already running 1.5 hours late.  There was no change in landscape either to suggest that we could be nearing Swiss. We only encountered endless small stations and a green countryside. Finally after what seemed like an eternity we seemed to be approaching a city and the station looked pretty big. We had our fingers crossed and we were indeed at the Basel station! It was just past 3:30 PM. The train should have arrived at 2 PM and we should have caught the train to Interlaken at 2:55 PM but we had clearly missed it. We had seen the train schedules sometime back and vaguely knew that there was a train to Interlaken every hour. This meant that there would be a train in 15-20 mins! We quickly searched for a display board and found the platform number for the Interlaken train and rushed to the platform. We knew that if we stopped over to grab a bite ( or coffee ) we had a possibility of missing this train as well and then we would have to wait till 5 PM. So we rushed ahead without eating. My ankle was swollen due to the long journey and the uncomfortable crepe bandage. We finally found the train and then soon discovered that there is not much place for the luggage. It didn’t help our cause that most of the passengers were tourists will quick large suitcases. We would face the luggage problem in the train journeys to come during the trip. It was 2 tier train so we climbed up and found 2 empty seats. I was again feeling bad for having missed a train that had a confirmed seat reservation. Now this would have to be first come first serve. We somehow adjusted our luggage by placing 2 of them in the common luggage area and 2 of them behind the seats. Now we had just 5 mins for the departure so we didn’t want to venture out to buy some food. This had been a hungry and tiring day already. Our spirits lifted as the train started off and were treated to the beautiful Swiss landscape. Thankfully the train had a restaurant wagon, so hubby dear set off to buy some food. He came back with a couple of cakes which we gobbled up and felt hungrier than before! We had forgotten to exchange Euros for Swiss francs, so he had paid by the travel card. It didn’t help to see our neighbours eating a variety of goodies out of a paper bag. Soon enough the snack cart also came our way and we got ourselves a much needed caffeine fix. The landscape got prettier as we progressed and we began to enjoy the journey. This was supposed to be a 2 hours ride. As we neared Interlaken, we could see the train moving along a huge lake. I had read that Interlaken was nestled between 2 lakes (hence the name ) but seeing this huge sheet of water was heavenly. It stretched on for miles and the greenish blue hue was almost magical. If we hadn’t been so tired, we would have taken a few pics. This was the start of many scenic rides to come in Switzerland. I had also been apprehensive if Switzerland would live up to the hype. After having grown up with a steady dose of Bollywood movies shot in Swiss, you do tend to have your expectations high! Besides I had heard some people say that it’s too touristy and overhyped.  Anyway we would soon find out for ourselves. As we kept admiring the beauty of the lake, we soon reached Interlaken. It was almost 6 PM, but looked bright and sunny.  As per our schedule we should have reached an hour earlier, so I had planned to visit Harder Kulm if possible. We had read good reviews about it and the starting point was right opposite the hotel. Harder Kulm was Interlaken’s home mountain and there was a funicular ride ( just 8 minutes long) to the top which had spectacular views of the 2 lakes and the mountains around. The last ride back was at 6:40 PM everyday which meant that we had to miss it L.Our first task was to find the hotel and we had the walking directions printed from Google. The train station did not have a lift but there was a ramp which made dragging the luggage easy. As soon as we stepped out we saw a Coop store. I had read a lot about the Coop (the cooperative stores) and most tourists recommended picking bread, bun, croissants etc for breakfast from a Coop. We decided to visit the place later. As we walked out of the station, we asked a passeby for the Carlton Grand Europe hotel and he pointed to the opposite side of the road. The hotel was just a few hundred meters away! This thrilled me a lot and we easily reached the hotel. The hotel manager was very helpful and after a welcome drink he gave us several brochures, city map and suggestions. We told him about our Jungfraujoch plans for the next day and he gave us more brochures. He told us that the bank would be closed but we could use Euros or card in almost all the places. He gave us a heavy key ( the key chain was like a small mallet and could be easily used to whack someone in the head!! ) and also the door code for late night access. 

We then went up to our room which was very spacious with a cute balcony. The bed had 2 small heart shaped chocolates on it. I had a quick look at the balcony and the views from there. It was really beautiful. Also the bathroom was huge and this was a welcome change from our small rooms (and very small baths) in Paris and Amsterdam.

The room

View from balcony

Ready to explore the pretty city

We decided to explore the city and bit and have an early dinner as we had almost starved the whole day. Also the next day would be long, so we wanted to have some good rest after the tiring journey. The hotel manager told us that we could walk along the river or explore the shopping area. We first decided to walk along the river and and explore the beauty of this charming town. We saw the started point of Harder Kulm and were disappointed again. We took some pictures and walking along the river. We saw several people relaxing and fishing. Some were setting up tripods to indulge in photography. And some were jogging along the river in shorts! Looking at them made me feel colder. We took some pictures and walked along. It was a nice relaxing walk for about half an hour.

A walk along the river

 A train speeding along

 Soon we reached the other side of the city and saw a Casino board. As we crossed it, we saw several shops. To my huge disappointment most of them were closed. I had heard that shops close early in Europe but it was just about 7 PM!! There was one huge watch store open, so we decided to explore. I had planned on buying watches for my parents. We looked around several brands but nothing caught my fancy. If they did catch my fancy, they had the potential to wipe out my bank account. We decided to come back the next day and check more stores while they were open. We were too hungry by now and started looking for a good place to eat. We walked in the direction of the hotel so that if we didn’t find a good place, we could eat at the hotel itself. We saw an interesting shop on the way which reminded us of Amsterdam. The board said – “The last sex shop in the Jungfrau region”. This made us wonder if there were there any more shops before this as this was the last one. It was closed so we could not fuel our curiosity in any way. We saw a nice restaurant and decided to try it. This was the first fine dining experience of the trip. The staff was friendly and they pointed out vegetarian options in the menu. We ordered some Rose wine to make us warm. I decided to try the Pasta with Saffron sauce and hubby tried the Potato Rosti which was a famous Swiss dish. 

Pasta with saffron sauce

Potato Rosti and Rose wine

 We wanted to try the famous Cheese fondue but decided to leave it for another day. We also chose to share a soup. The bread and flavoured butter served were simply out of the world. The butter was rich, creamy and laced with herbs. This was our first taste of the Swiss dairy products produced by the healthy mountain cows. We even had a second serving of the assorted breads. The pasta had a very rich and different flavor (something like Kesar milk) but it was too creamy and greasy to finish. I had as much as I could. The Rosti was lighter. It was mashed potatoes with grilled vegetables on top. Both the dishes were bland and we sprinkled a generous amount of pepper to spice it up. This was really a fine dine with the bill of around 50 Euros! We told ourselves that it was alright as we had skipped breakfast and lunch and had snacked the whole day. It was time to head back to the hotel and sleep. We decided to start early to beat the tourist crowd for our trip to Jungfraujoch, so we planned to catch the 7:30 train.

-- Yes & Why

Europe Trip - Day 8 (18-Sept-2012)

Day 8 : Amsterdam and Brussels

One of the few pictures we took in Vondelpark

Rain was to play spoilsport in today’s plans. We had a quick breakfast were ready to go to Vondelpark. The weather was cold with temperature hovering around 10 deg Celsius and rain was in the air. We took our umbrellas and head out to take the tram. The park was just a stone’s throw from the hotel and we decided to take a tram to the next station instead of walking to save up my wife’s leg for the rest of the day. To start with we took the tram in the wrong direction so we got off in the next stop and took another tram and hopped off two stops later. We walked for a short while before we spotted the entrance of the park. Vondelpark is apparently 120 acres in size and therefore has several entry points. As we started walking towards the entrance a slight drizzle made its entry. By the time we reached the park the drizzle stopped and we thought it might just be a passing shower. We entered the park and it was all wet and covered with slush at places maybe due to overnight rains. I clicked a couple of pictures of my wife and then all out a sudden a heavy downpour started just as we were standing in the open are of the park. We opened out our umbrellas and rushed off the open area. The rain now was very heavy and we were getting drenched rapidly. We ran out of towards the trees to give us some protection. We waited for a few minutes to observe the rain and it only seemed to intensify. So we decide to get back to the hotel. By the time we hit the tram station and boarded it the shower had become consistent and heavy. We returned to our room shivering after being exposed to the cold and rain. After drying ourselves we decided to stay indoors to prevent more exposure to the rains. We had noted down the train timing for return to Brussels. We departed around midday. 

Bye Bye Amsterdam!

We were disappointed with how the proceedings of the morning had panned out. The rain had already dampened our spirits. We had entertained thoughts of stopping over at either Rotterdam or The Hague on our way back but we decided against it. So we left around noon and we reached Brussels by 3.30 pm. We were really hungry as we had skipped lunch so we grabbed a sandwich from the Brussels Nord station. The next step was to hunt for a crepe bandage for my wife as her ankle didn’t look good at all and we had several hectic days ahead in the trip. We entered a medical shop and tried to explain to the lady at the counter for bandages. She first showed something like a knee cap, then finally she got what we were asking for. We just hoped this was worth the investment of 10 euros and headed home and wrapped up the ankle in it. We then decided on two things for the rest of the evening. First was to shop for chocolates. Chocolates are in my opinion is the best for gifting to relatives and friends. “What did you get from Europe for me” is a question that inevitably comes up and we needed an easy answer it. And chocolates work best. It is available in plenty in this part of the world and the cost can be managed as per our needs. The second in our list was to visit the Atomium one of Brussels’ noted structures. We actually wanted to visit either the Tintin museum in Brussels (Tintin hails from Belgium and my wife is a diehard fan) or the Comic strip centre ( this not only had dedications to Tintin but also Asterix and other comics of Belgian origin) but we realized that it was too late for these. They would close by 5:30. So Atomium was the choice for our last evening in Brussels.

Soon our friend returned from work. She took us to a nearby wholesale store for chocolates. Initially we planned to visit a factory located nearby Brussels to buy chocolates. That as per our friend would work out even cheaper than buying packed chocolates from stores. But the flipside is that it comes with no standard packing as you would see in stores. We needed to pack it ourselves and since we had a large part of our tour still remaining we had to ensure that we safeguarded them. So it became imperative for us to have them packed properly. Therefore we decided to drop the plan of going to the factory even though it would have saved us some money. A 15 min. walk from our apartment to the Colruyt store. Our friends suggested us to pick Cot’dOr. We directly attacked the chocolate section. My wife was running haywire up and down the chocolate section not knowing which one to pick. I asked her to calm down and to sample each row one by one and systematically so that she doesn’t leave any stone unturned. After about half an hour our basked was almost three fourth full with varies ranging from 75% pure dark chocolate to white chocolate slabs to truffles and everything in between. Some of other brands which had interesting flavors were Galler, Jacques etc. We also found Cot’dOr mini bars sold in lose pieces which could be picked by weight. We picked some of those and also on some irresistible biscuits with biscuits filled with chocolates. Since we had a long journey the next day to Switzerland we picked up 2 packets of buns which we thought would be useful during the travel. And how precious this decision would turn out to be!! Now we moved on the billing where we found we had shopped for around 70 Euros. And the surprise came when the lady manning counter for some reason would not accept any card that I was having. I heard that in general chip cards is preferred but I thought they would still take card that don’t have the chip. I couldn’t quite understand what the billing clerk wanted and what was wrong. Finally we had to settle down to cash. But another problem arose. We didn’t have that much of cash. Finally all the three of us pooled in everything and could somehow manage the cash. That incident made me a bit uncomfortable using my prepaid travel card. Till date I didn’t understand what the problem was but I personally feel that there was a communication gap between the billing clerk and us. The lady also rejected the cards showed by my friend and she was surprised as my friend was a regular at this supermarket for her monthly groceries.

All is well that ends well. We came out with almost 3 kilograms of chocolates we walked back home. A strange feeling that the return path was longer and more grueling crept in because I was carrying the load. We dropped off the chocolates, borrowed some money from our friend for the travel and then took the tram #7 from the station right outside our place of stay to reach Heyzel. After a meandering 15 min ride in the tram the Atomium structure was visible from 2 stations before Heyzel. The structure was glowing in the evening sunshine. We were already late for entry into the main structure as the last entry is at 5 pm. So we only went around the huge steel structure which represents the structure of an Iron crystal and took some pictures.

Outside the Atomuim

We walked across the Atomium and we spotted a small frites shop across the fountains. Since we knew it would be the last day in Belgium we thought we should have one last dose of the sinful double fried frites. Unfortunately the fiasco while buying the chocolates meant that we were totally out of cash (except for some small change which we wanted to save for the return tram) and we were now very apprehensive of using the travel card. We found the public transport pricey here with a single one way ticket prices at 2.5 Euros for a bus, tram or metro ride. We also quickly realized that finding an ATM is as difficult and spotting an oasis in the desert. We repented for not having withdrawn cash in Amsterdam where ATMs were plenty. But we refrained from using them since they were directly on the walls (with no enclosing) and also the place looked unsafe. We inquired in one of the hotels in the vicinity and the desk clerk gave us some directions to the nearest ATM which he estimated would be a kilometer away.  We embarked on our quest using the directions given by the man in the hotel and after walking for a while we entered an eerie neighborhood. We got a bit uncomfortable because we hardly saw any signs of people around the place and overall there was strange silence around the place. This felt very odd as we had experienced a lot of tourist crowd over the last few days. Most of the shops were shut barring one which I entered and once again asked about the nearest ATM. The man in the shop was very puzzled with the term ATM and after long deliberation he said “Money Machine”! He gave me a fresh set of directions and since we didn’t have any other options (no maps and no GPS, can’t believe how lost one can be) we again went down the path that the shopkeeper gave and eureka we finally found a bank and an ATM attached to it. We quickly went in and withdrew cash and headed to the metro station which we went past when entered the ATM. We decided that instead of walking back to the tram station we would take a train and then switch to tram. After all this mini adventure we missed the last chance to have frites. The metro station was an experience by itself. This was also very sparsely populated with an uncomfortable silence. Worst of all, we couldn’t find any metro staff and all the counters were empty. It was a futile attempt to look for a ticket counter to buy a ticket. We noticed several vending machines though. We were apprehensive of using them since we thought they accept only cards. We later realized that the machines accepted cash and also gave the change out. We bought 2 tickets (these were valid for connections, so we could use them on the tram as well!) and took the next metro to the nearest tram station. We reached home and a fresh Indian dinner awaited us. We had dinner and packed out bags as we had a long journey ahead of us the following day. After trying out several combinations we somehow packed all the chocolates into one suitcase and since our next destination was Switzerland we ensured that all the warm clothes were out in our backpacks. Amidst all this preparation for our stay in Switzerland little did we know what was in store for us the following day in our train ride.

-- Yes & Why

Europe Trip - Day 7 (17-Sept-2012)

Day 7 : Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 

We were off to Amsterdam today. Like Bruges, Amsterdam is also sometimes referred to as "Venice of the north". My wife who was nursing a sore ankle had already overworked her legs yesterday in Bruges. So we decided to take it easy and leave late. Our check in at the hotel in Amsterdam was anyway at 3pm. After a brief training on how to lock the house and unlock the main gates of the apartment, our friends entrusted the keys to us and left for work. Our plan was to spend just one night in Amsterdam and return by next evening. So we packed accordingly and left to take a bus to Brussels Midi railway station. A bus ride of 15 minutes took us to the Midi station. There was a special return fare were available for weekend return trips to Amsterdam. Since it was a Monday we couldn’t avail it. This could have potentially saved us 50% on the train fares. But our initial plans were to use a BeNeLux pass that we purchased online, as we hadn’t plan to drive down to Luxembourg and other places initially. Now we decided not to use the pass and return them to get a refund. The costs worked out cheaper that way.

As we entered the Midi station we saw a train for Amsterdam scheduled in about 10 mins. So we rushed to the international ticket counter (didn’t realize it was an international travel) and purchased a ticket. We also got a complimentary map of Amsterdam with trams and bus timetables along with the tickets. We rushed towards the platform and boarded the train just in time. We knew that if we missed it the next train would be an hour later so the dash was worth it. The train ride was about 3 hours as it was a normal train. If we had taken the high speed Thalys, it would have been 2 hours, but those tickets had expensive last minute fares. We reached the Amsterdam Centraal station and proceeded directly to the transport office across the station. Our first buy was a one day ( 24 hrs ) tram pass. Trams are the best form of transport within the city. 

Tram in Amsterdam

The queue system was pretty organized with a token being issued once you enter and we had to wait until the token number is called for. Much like what we encounter in State Bank of India branches in many cities in India. We then proceeded towards the adjoining tourist office. This was one of the good things which we would encounter in most places. Every place we went had a tourist office right next to the railway station. We wanted to do a cruise on the river Amstel. We were again given a token to wait for our turn. We had quite a bit of numbers to go before we got our turn. Meanwhile there was another lady who filtered out people who had simple queries. When our turn came up we went and enquired about the river cruise. We got two options by different tour operators. One was for 14 euros and another for 8 euros. We opted for the inexpensive one . We wanted to do the cruise at night, similar to the one experienced in Paris. This ticket was valid upto 11 pm. So we made the booking for the cruise. The next thing we enquired was the entry to the Anne Frank Museum. We found that tickets could be purchased there and the last entry is at 5.30pm. So we picked the 4.15pm slot so that it gave us enough time to reach the place and then have enough time to spend in the museum. Once all the ticketing was done we proceeded to take the tram to reach our hotel. The tram station was adjacent the tourist office and a 15 min tram ride took us right in front of the hotel (the tram directions matched precisely like what was mentioned in the website of the hotel). The hotel itself was in the first floor and it was an old house. The first floor was shared between another resident and the hotel reception. The hotel rooms were in the second floor and above. And to worsen things further there was no lift. A steep flight of stairs took us to our room in the third floor. The climb to the room was almost like a rock climbing expedition. A strange set of locks greeted us and I spend atleast 5 mins before I could open it. Once we entered the room we decided that we would not want to climb up and down the stairs too many times. It was very small and neat room with basic needs. We quickly freshened up and we were ready to go. We stopped over for a bite at McDonalds and were pleasantly surprised to find a veggie burger on the menu.   

Our friends had cautioned us about thefts in Amsterdam so we didn’t carry our laptop. I had jotted down all the required notes of the places we wanted to see in our notepad before our travel. The tourist information maps were indeed very helpful. In fact until that point I never realized how handicapped we have become if we don’t have access to a computer or a mobile phone. All the days till now we had the comfort feeling that we can get back to the hotel and check for more information if needed using our laptop. One good thing that this can do to you is to make you more prepared.

Our first place of interest was the Anne Frank Museum. I was not aware of the history behind Anne Frank and her dairies until my wife told me about it. It is quite an amazing story set in the midst of the World War II. Anne Frank and her family hid in her father’s office in Amsterdam for two years totally cut off from the outside world. Anne Frank’s family was captured and sent to concentration camps. Anne Frank’s father, the lone survivor from the camp returned to his Amsterdam hideout where he found the dairies of Anne. He was so moved by crisp portrayal of thoughts of his twelve year old daughter that he got them published as “Dairy of a Young Girl”. It has since been translated into to several languages and their hideout in Amsterdam is now a museum. 

Outside Anne Frank's house

We landed at the entrance of the museum and entered it through a separate entrance for prior reservations. It was not all that crowded and we could have very well purchased tickets on the spot. When we entered the museum the first thing we noticed were signs mentioning that photography was prohibited. Also all the artifacts and the pages from the diary were maintained in low light to preserve them.

The first few rooms of the museum were normal with the history of the Frank family, few photographs of the members of the family etc were displayed. One of the rooms had a small television with a brief video about the history of Anne Frank and her dairies. The real places to visit came after about 20 mins into the tour of the house. A steep climb (almost like climbing a ladder) led us to book case which used to cover the secret passage to the hideout. Once we entered it was dimly lit to ensure we get the similar feel that would have been experience back then. There were two rooms which were lit dimly by bulbs. The windows were always covered with thick curtains to prevent external visibility to the house. And it is said that Otto Frank insisted that the family keep still through the day and not make any sound to prevent suspicion. The first room was Otto Frank’s room which also served as the family sitting room. The fascinating thing that has been preserved till now is the marking on the walls which Otto Frank made for the growth of his children in height during the hiding. The next room was Anne Frank’s room. Anne Frank decorated her room with pictures of film stars and personalities from art and history. Some of the pictures originally stuck in the room have been retained. Also attached to these rooms was a small bathroom. After we were done with the two rooms, another steep climb using a ladder was awaiting us. It was a bit of tough climb especially for my wife who was already nursing a sore ankle. The room just below the attic was a one of Peter, the son of another family who also staying along with the Franks.

The overall experience of the Ann Frank was pretty unnerving. To imagine what the family would have gone through is a bit unsettling. In fact when we made our way out for the secret annex into the book store there was a room with pages from the original diary displayed. A short video of Otto Frank, Ann Frank’s father was also playing in the same room. When we finally saw daylight we felt a bit heavy in our hearts for the family. I am sure there were several such families with such horror stories and for some reason my mind just went back to the movie “Life is Beautiful” and its storyline. I only hoped that the world never witnesses any wars leave alone World Wars.

Since we could not take any pictures inside the museum we stopped by outside the museum to take a few pictures. 

The "hideout"

We then decided to walk around that place for a while. It was a cool evening and sunset was coming up. The museum was overlooking the canal and there were several bridges at regular intervals to cross over to the other side. We took one of those bridges and started walking aimlessly for a while near the museum and we finally decided to take a tram and head out towards Dam square. We reached the Dam square tram station and started walking down one straight stretch of road. On the way we saw a huge casino. We also noticed a small frites shop. And it looked very interesting. The choice of toppings was not just limited to traditional mayonnaise. It had several flavors. We read the choices and narrowed down on green pepper mayonnaise. We took a portion of fries and started walking down the road. We sat by the road to eat out the fries and then found ourselves a small memorabilia shop where we purchased some fridge magnets. Along the way also noticed a familiar eating place – Maoz, which we had tried in Paris. We would return there later for our dinner. There was also a frites shop named after our favourite boy from Brussels, Mannekin Pis. It had a huge model of him with fries!

 Prinsengracht with the Westerkerk (Western Church)- Amsterdam's tallest church -in the background

The Royal palace at Dam square

First to board the cruise boat !

We never realized how much time we spent walking around in that places until we gazed at our watches. We had purchased tickets for a night cruise that started from a place further away from the Centraal station where the cruises during the other times operate. So we needed to hunt it down and to handicap us further there was no access to Google maps (So no walking routes!!). So we used a conventional map and tried to orient us and started walking. Unfortunately after a few minutes of walking we were rudely awakened by the fact that we were walking down the wrong direction. After asking a few shopkeepers we finally got the direction correct and chose to take tram as we had walk quite a bit away from our mark. It took two stops by tram to reach a point that my wife and I hesitantly got off. We were estimating that the wharf would come one more station later. We walked across and enquired once again with a shopkeeper and he gestured vaguely to the opposite side of the canal. So we crossed the canal and across a small counter where an old lady was cleaning. We waited for a moment and tried to read the address in our tickets and tried to do a pattern matching of the name and address. After a short while I just walked up to the lady and showed the ticket to ask for the location but she instantly went into the counter and issued us the tickets for our cruise. I was a bit bemused by what happened overall. Then we noticed the name board of the cruise company for which we had got tickets. (http://www.rederijkooij.nl/en/) By this time we were a bit tired as we had walked quite a bit. We climbed down a small bridge and into the cruise boat and we waited for the cruise to start (we were the first people on board). In about 15 mins more people came by and the boat was about one fourth full when the cruise started. As seen in Paris, we saw several cruise boats on the canal. Some cruises had a candlelight cruise as well, with wine and dinner.

Can I drive?

Like Paris the cruise had a pre-recorded tape playing out history of each place. First thing we saw was the hotel run by Heineken, the beer company. 

Cozy seat to enjoy the cruise views

View of 7 bridges

The most fascinating thing we saw was the seven bridges, a spot from where seven different bridges over various canals are visible at the same time. And since it was a night cruise the lighting under the bridge made them look even more beautiful. 

View from the cruise

One of other interesting piece of information I got to know was that there were several boat houses docked around various canals and they are legal houses with electricity, water and gas connections. The cruise took us out of the city into the sea and we saw a view of the city. An interesting point to note was that some of the houseboats were illegal as well! We also saw a bridge built totally under the water and one of the restaurants had an underwater kitchen.

It was around 9.30 pm when the cruise was over and we were hungry. We took a tram back to Dam square and headed to the Maoz falafel place we had noted down earlier in the evening and had a filling falafel before heading back to our hotel. As it was late in the evening, the Tram announced the Dam square stop as “red light district”. We were amused with this. What we saw of Dam square was pretty deserted (in the night) with a few cafes open. We didn’t go looking for the red light district specifically as we weren’t interested but we couldn’t spot it instantly either. It would have perhaps been an interesting and unique sight. We also noticed that most of the souvenir shops had quite a lot of souvenirs which were in a pretty bad taste. This left us wondering if we could visit Amsterdam with kids!

We got off at the tram station near our hotel and we thought we should buy water. It was close to 11 pm and most of the shops were closed. We noticed there was one night shop opened selling liquors, cigarettes etc. We walked in and picked up water bottle and walked up to the billing desk. The person manning the counter told me “iet has gaezz”. I was wondering what he was asking me. I gave him a quizzical look and he repeated the same. I politely told him “Please tell me in English”. What he answered in returned got by a bit shaken. “I tell English” and then he repeated the line again. Both my wife and I were shocked with the revelation that the years of learning English in what used to be called as “Senior Cambridge” and later on ICSE here all went down the drain with that one line which in English we could not make head or tail of. He finally got a bit frustrated and went and picked up another bottle and showed it to me and I compared the one that I had picked. I finally found out that the one I picked was sparkling water and then it dawned that he was trying to say “It has gas”. I breathed a sigh of relief and felt that my English was after all not all that bad. We took the normal water instead of the sparkling water. I gave a sheepish look as I paid him and walked out of that place towards our hotel. After the tall climb in the hotel stairs we finally reached our room, pretty tired and ready to close proceeding for the days. My wife whose sore ankle by now had swollen needed some rest badly to recover. Our plan for tomorrow is to visit the huge Vondelpark which was a stone’s throw from our hotel before returning to Brussels.

-- Yes & Why