I rolled the dice by not leaving last night and lost. Arriving at the Hauptbahnhof the German rail strike was in full effect. Travelers were grouped around the information desk trying to receive any helpful hint to keep them on their way.
To use a Eurail Pass it must be validated by a railway official prior to beginning travels. After waiting in a long line, finally there was a free ticket agent, who flippantly told me there was no way to get to Luzern and to try again tomorrow. Not in the mood for a fight, I resigned to the idea of spending another day in Munich. On my way back through the station, the idea came to check the main information booth. These were people not involved in the strike and may have a different perspective. Fortunately, I got an energetic person in his twenties who was up for the challenge. In a matter of moments he had a route planned with only one transfer at the Innsbruck station.
So, it was fitting that the sleek ICE train that was supposed to carry me through Germany and on to Zurich...
... was waiting next to the “old school” train that would actually do the job.
It wasn’t first class, but I wasn’t stuck in Munich either and that seemed like a fair trade.
The Innsbruck train station is impressive and sits in a mountain bowl of sorts between ski hills on one side...
... and the former Olympic ski jump hill on the other.
Waiting for the connecting train to arrive another far more interesting caravan pulled into the station.
Now this is traveling “in style”, complete with the white glove treatment.
The sign on the train read “The Orient Express”, but I thought that ran from Moscow and to the other direction.
Maybe these were some refurbished original cars now used for 5-Star excursions.
My ride really wasn’t all that bad either, as first class in Austria comes with leather seats, conference tables, and the all important laptop electrical outlet.
As we pulled out of the station and into the alpine countryside everything was a beautiful blur passing by.
Lunchtime meant an easy two car stroll to the dining car.
Veal meatloaf, spuds, and veggies did the trick.
We knew that the border had been crossed when the window was filled with a passing lake that seemed to go on forever.
The tight mountain valleys opened up to broader pastoral plains.
With the return of a lake we knew that Zurich must be close.
A quick transfer of trains and one final lake brought us finally into Luzern after seven hours of travel.
(I'm beginning to think that Switzerland is a country of lakes, not mountains.)
The only thing left to do was check into the hostel and go for an early evening walk by yet another lake. It gets dark pretty early, so at 6:30pm a swan and I decided it was getting a little too dark for a stranger to be walking through unfamiliar woods and I headed back in the closing darkness.
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