Zurich – the first time …

It was an early, early start and yet we were to find out later that it wasn’t nearly early enuff!

Up at 4am, mini-cab at 5 (its too early for the underground to start – that should tell these airport people something!), arriving Heathrow at 6 for a 6.55am flight. Just when you don’t need it, the London queuing starts. We made the plane by the skin of our teeth and then found out we should be at the airport 2.5 hours before a flight. Oh well. We know for Rome but that is a much more civilised afternoon flight.

We landed in Zurich and found the shuttle bus to our hotel. After exploring the hotel Leigh is rapt … he wants to spend the entire holiday right here. There is free internet access that he can plug the laptop into, a king size bed and air-conditioning in the room. This met his current definition of heaven!

At 2ish we got to meet Collette – famed Trafalgar tour director who speaks 7 languages (that we know of), her English comes complete with an Irish accent. Collette - narrator of the history of Europe 101 and educator regarding potty funds and the concept of loo dragons.

And then we are off for a tour of Zurich city centre. It is hot. It is unseasonally hot for Switzerland – just my luck - Grrrrr. Strange to get sunburnt while looking at snow on the mountains.

We climbed aboard our huge Mercedes bus that seats 40-something (and there were to be only 32 of us on the tour) with our driver, Hans from Austria. A drive along the lake and then some time to investigate the narrow streets of Zurich old-town.

Then back to the hotel for a welcome drink. No welcome dinner tonite as many have flown in and were tired – including us. So it was a “reasonably priced” club sandwich at the bar with some of the other tour participants. 23 swiss franc = 30 Aussie dollar. Ack! But then again it also equals about 10 English pounds so I guess if you convert that way it does start to sound reasonable compared to everything over the past 6 weeks :-)