Europe, 2022, Travel Day 2

Vancouver is beautiful. I woke up to this.

I had breakfast delivered to the room so I could take my time getting ready for my flight today. And take my time I did.

I took the hotel shuttle to the airport and made it to the Sky Team Lounge by around 10:30am. Here’s where I had a bite of lunch and just relaxed.

Today is a long travel day. 10 hour flight to Paris, arriving around 8am local time. Then a 6 hour train ride to Gimmelwald, Switzerland. I hope to be walking into Esther’s Guesthouse around 6pm-7pm. Hopefully this will help me transition with the least amount of jet-lag.

Here’s my plane. Air France’s 777-200.

Nice seat, two windows for me to watch the world go by. It’s going to be an amazing flight.

I started watching Downton Abbey, A New Era before we took off. (I’m a huge fan of the series. I just balled my eyes out through the last 10 minutes of the film. It was great.) Meal service began after we got to 33,000 feet. The crew made the meal service feel like a fine restaurant. And the food was great.

And dessert was perfect.

I watched a few more movies and tried to sleep some. Despite the smooth flight I didn’t really get any substantial sleep. Still, nice flight.

I was expecting to spend a couple of hours at the airport and then catch an 11:23am train. Since we arrived in Paris a bit early I was able to make it through customs by 8:30am and then power walk to catch an 8:59am TGV Train to Basel. I made it with 10 minutes to spare.

I can hear my bed in Gimmelwald calling my name.

A quick change of trains in Strasbourg put me on a regional train to Basel, Switzerland. I grabbed a croissant, pretzel and espresso (un cafe) for 4 euro. I’m really glad I had a handful of euro coins that I threw in my bag. 

A couple of hours later and I arrived in Gimmelwald via the Gondola.

Jet lag was really staring to kick in but it was only around 4pm local time so it was too early to sleep. I went to the farm down the road to get some Alp Cheese and smoked sausage.

I love that you can get fresh eggs, milk and cheese in this little barn.

And here’s my room in Esther’s Guest House.

The view is ridiculous. And it keeps changing as the lighting and clouds shift.

I took the gondola up to Mürren to get some groceries and had a little plate of crackers, cheese and smoked sausage. Add a little bit of my favorite Swiss chocolate and it was just enough for dinner.

I took a quick shower and got ready for bed. Now I’m lying in bed looking at this.

And good night to you.

And because you made it this far you get the bonus “moo cow parade through Mürren“ video.