Day #211 - St. Moritz, Switzerland

St. Moritz, Switzerland

A walk along the lake in St. Moritz

St. Moritz, Switzerland

October trees

Lietchenstein

Monday, October 11th

A real good day today. I started off by meeting up with Katie for breakfast. Excellent! Great to see someone from Minnesota and catch up. A perfect way to kick off the day and change up the pace a little bit. Thanks Katie!

I then took a train headed for Chur, Switzerland - leaving the main train station at 10:37am. I really wasn't sure my plans. I wanted to see the sites in southeastern Switzerland and just go with it. A real advantage of countries like Switzerland and Germany over France/Spain - is the fact that you do not ever need a reservation to go on the trains with a eurail pass. This means I can literally jump on/off whenever I feel like it. No questions asked. My plans can change by the minute when I'm winging it in this fashion.

I got to the Sargans, Switzerland train stop. I decided I wanted to see the country of Liechtenstein. This is a tiny country (makes Luxembourg look like Russia) situated between the Switzerland and Austria borders. I had to take a bus. I took a 15 minute bus ride to the town of Triesen, Liechtenstein. I got out - took a few pictures - walked across the street to the opposite bus stop - and got the next bus back into Switzerland. It was a 45 minute detour from my day. What did I learn in Liechtenstein? Nothing. But, I just looked up a couple things. Lietchenstein has a population of 35,000 people with an area of 62 square miles. It has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world according to CIA Factbook. It's the richest German speaking country in the world and the only one not to border Germany itself. If I didn't see the different flags waving, I would not have known I was in another country.

Back on the train - headed due south to St. Moritz. Should I go another 1.5 hours south? Sure I should. The train ride was worth the trip itself. Spectacular. Up and down mountains, passing through continuous tunnels in the hillsides, overlooking autumn-colored trees in the valleys -- really great place to visit. I think just about anywhere in southern Switzerland is a ideal place for a car/train ride.

I arrived in St. Mortiz mid-afternoon. This is a world-famous ski resort - known for its glamour and hollywood appeal. Unreal scenery. The town overlooks this huge lake. I took a long walk around half of it. It was a really cool day today. I'd say temperatures were upper 40's to low 50's. I had little clothing on - so I walked fast to keep warm.

The elevation was around 6,000ft. I didn't feel the effects really - my ears were popping on the train ride - but nothing else bothered me. One of the other things about St. Mortiz - the Glacier Express train leaves from here. It takes a 7-1/2 hour journey to Zermatt (on the other side of the country). The train averages 25mph, passes over 291 bridges, and through 91 tunnels on it's 169-mile trek. I obviously did not take this trip today. I priced it in Zermatt - you gotta pay for it - but it would arguably be the most scenic train ride you could ever take.

After some time in St. Mortiz - I took the train headed north for Davos, Switzerland. This was a quick pass through. I spent about 1 hour in the town grabbing a few pictures. Davos is famous for 2 reasons: 1) It's the largest ski resort in Switzerland 2) It hosts the World Economic Forum (WEF) - an annual meeting of global political/business elites. There was alot of construction going on in the town today. I didn't have a great feel for it. But, add some snow, throw up some Christmas lights, rent a cabin with a hottub overlooking the mountains, and ditch the heavy machinery -- I think you might have something.

Back to Zurich. Tomorrow I travel to Austria - to a place that once held the Winter Olympics.