Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Monday, 17 August. We were up at 4:45, had a quick breakfast from the snacks laid out in the lounge, and left the ship by taxi at 5:30. As expected, we got to the train station before 6:00. Our train (CIS 51) was at 6:28 so we weren't rushed, thanks to our reconnaissance the day before. We found our reserved seats quickly, but our two huge suitcases were a problem the whole way.
The train followed a route through Olten, Bern, Thun, Spiez,
Visp, Brig, Domodossola, and Gallerate to Milan. South from Thun the train ran
along beautiful lake Thun, one of the two lakes flanking Interlaken. After
Speiz, also on Lake Thun, there were tall mountains on both sides of the
train, and they kept getting higher as we crossed the ridge of the Bernese
Alps. (The Jungfrau is a peak in this ridge, but we couldn't see it.) Then we descended to the Rhone Valley and followed that east through Visp
to
Brig. There the train entered the Simplon Tunnel, opened in 1905 and still the
longest rail tunnel in the world (12.3 miles). We emerged in Italy and soon
stopped at Domodossola. It came as an unpleasant surprise that we
had to get off of the Swiss train here, suitcases and all, and switch to an identically numbered
Italian train waiting across the platform.
Not far out of Domodossola, the train came to Lake Maggiore (near Feriolo - about 2/3 of the lake is northeast of that), then followed its west shore all the way to the south end of the lake (about 20 miles). The scenery was spectacular.
We got to Milan at 10:35 on schedule. We checked the track for our train to Verona (#9715), but it wasn't there yet. We thought we'd get a snack in the station restaurant, but there wasn't any. There were only three bars, none with a place to sit. Jane had an ice cream, sitting on our suitcases in the concourse. We walked to our train, now boarding. Our car was #1, but the train had backed in so it was the furthest away. The temperature was 95 degrees and I was soaking wet be the time we found our seats. The train was packed with tourists going to Venice. We had to ask the couple in our reserved seats to move.
The train left Milan at 11:35 and made excellent time, stopping only
at Brescia and Lake Garda. We arrived in Verona on schedule at 12:57 and were
met by our friends. I won't go into the details of our visit except to mention
that the weather was stifling hot the entire time. Nonetheless, we had a very
enjoyable visit.
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