The Grand Tour

“IO SONO IL TRENO”

Today we did what we planned, in its entirety, without any variation—except only the Lord is in control of the weather. It was overcast most of the day, except on the Italian side of the Alps where it rained all the time. This was as the weather bureau had stated on their web-site. There was a big green splodge over the Italian part of Switzerland, and it proved to be accurate.

So the plan was to leave Yverdon (0907) for Olten (depart 1030), change into a train to Arth Goldau (arrive 1145, depart 1150), change at Bellinzona (arrive 1323, depart 1330), to Locarno (arrive 1357, end of the line). All this still in Switzerland. Then walk to the Locarno FART station and catch the narrow gauge train (described on YouTube as the ugliest train in the world) (depart 1412) to Domodossola (in Italy, arrive 1556). Change to a Milan to Lausanne train (depart 1610) to Lausanne (arrive 1814). The online timetable then suggested catching a Geneva train and changing at Morges to a Geneva Yverdon train, arriving at Yverdon at 1902. I thought it more sensible to catch the 1845 from Lausanne to Yverdon, arriving at 1907.

Actually, the original plan was to leave Yverdon at 0807, but we decided that a later start would still be OK. Anne had given an alternative itinerary, the same route but leaving at 0807 and arriving back at 2005. As it was we only managed to catch the Zurich bound train by a couple of minutes, after some fairly brisk walking. My left shoulder made it’s usual complaint, but nonetheless we caught the planned train. Marianne decided that she wanted pictures of the sun shining on the waters of Lake Neuchatel, so she kept popping across the carriage to get suitable pictures. We were delayed at Biel/Bienne (German and French names for the same place) while awaiting the arrival of a connection, but we got to Olten with plenty of time to change trains. Marianne asked why we were catching a Locarno train but we had to change twice to get to Locarno. I turned on Data Roaming on the iPhone (off normally as it’s £3/MB downloaded when abroad) and checked the train times online. If we stayed on that train it would get us to Locarno a minute after the train to Domodossolo. We arrived at Luzerne, a terminus station so common on the continent where through trains come in and then go out again, so if you want to stay facing the same direction you have to change seats. While waiting there (for about 15 minutes) an Italian gentleman got into our carriage and reminded me of Don Jolly. Some may remember his television sketch where he is on a train and gets out a large (half as big as him) mobile phone and bellows into it “I’M ON THE TRAIN”! This gentleman was either psychotic or speaking on the phone with a very loud voice. “IO SONO IL TRENO” is “I’m on the train” in Italian. Capitals in e-mail communication always indicates shouting. He went on for ages. I pretended to get my phone out and shout “I’M ON THE TRAIN” to the amusement of several. Others couldn’t stand it and moved. Perhaps the person at the other end of the phone was hard of hearing, possibly because that’s how he normally speaks to them. We set off down the side of Lake Luzerne to Arth Goldau where several of us escaped the Italian gentleman, walking across the platform to the connection which we’d seen travelling down the other side of Lake Lucerne. This was to be the most interesting part of the whole journey.

The train has to gain a great deal of height before entering the St Gothard Tunnel under the Alps. To do this it rises up a valley side before eventually doing a circuitous spiral that results in seeing the same pretty church building three times. On the third time quite a few people stood up so that they could see out of the left side window. It’s something I’d heard about years ago and was determined to see this for myself. There are a few other places in Switzerland where trains do this, but this is the most famous. Having gained the height to enter the tunnel the line does the reverse on the way down (obviously on the way up if you’re heading north!). As we exited the tunnel it was as if the heavens opened. It had been raining this side of the Alps all morning, but it came as a surprise. Not such good views of the mountains here (we’ll have to come back next year when the weather’s better). Arrival at Bellinzona was on time and we waited on the same platform for the regional train that stopped at every station to Locarno. It was still wet as we kept to the covered areas and walked the short distance to the FART (Ferrovie Autolinee Regionali Ticinesi) station, which is underground next to the main station, (some things just do not fare well in translation!) Whether it is the ugliest train in the world I’m not sure, but aesthetics were not foremost in the designer’s mind, certainly. The little train did not allow much leg-room, but Marianne managed to refrain from kicking me except when I was too slow to photograph a solitary goatherd, wearing an anorak, walking in a wood with a small herd. Instead she took a photo of me next to the station sign! It never got to a very high speed, often only 15kph until the final stretch. It clung to one or the other of the valley sides all the way. Occasionally it would cross a side valley and then my vertigo almost (but not quite) took over. The rain on the outside of the window made any photography difficult as autofocus picked up on the water droplets rather than the scenery. On a clear day the views would have been magnificent. Because we were travelling on a new train we had to pay a supplement of CHF2 each. The sound of it made me think it was very old, squeaking and creaking all the way—probably the springs settling in. Whatever, it took us to Domodossala in Italy, albeit 10 minutes late leaving 5 minutes for the connection.

The train had started in Milan and was mixed Italian and Swiss stock. It’s final destination was Geneva Airport. I had to check twice that the compartment we chose (unusual that it was not open carriages which is most common everywhere) was second class as there were only three comfy seats across. The highlight of this part of the journey was going through the Simplon Railway tunnel which is nearly 20km long. It was the longest in the world until the late 80s. One of us found it quite tiring! Once we reached Brig I noticed the narrow gauge track of the Glacier Express railway we had seen in Chur yesterday. This explains why we could find no trains going that way. We looked at the SBB timetable instead of the Glacier Express timetable. But it looks like the latest train to Brig from Chur is 1215, show we were too late anyway. The rest of the journey was uneventful, running steadily at about 80mph. It was irritating as we approached Lausanne that the kilometre posts, which allow one to time the train and measure its speed, disappeared. We finally arrived back at Yverdon shortly after 7 and a brisk walk back to Anne’s house made us ready for the chicken pie she had prepared. I then joined her son, Marc, watching Champions Leagure matches, Manchester United on his computer and Marseilles v. AC Milan and FC Zurich v. Real Madrid on his flat screen television (with considerable flicking backwards and forwards!).

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

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