Day 3 January 9, 2009

Date: December 28th, 2008

The Plan: See Zurich City Center, drive to Rhine falls, drive to Milan

Since last night we drove around Zurich, we were not that keen on doing City Center again. So our first stop for the day was Zurich Train Station or Zurich HB as it is called there.  This station is huge, in a day 2,700 trains pass through here.

Zurich Station

The station is much bigger inside, it has an underground level too.

Zurich Station Inside

We walked around the station, went underground did some more window shopping, did the most American thing had breakfast at McDonald’s again, trust me the Croissants and coffee are way better here.  We stopped by the tourist information at the Station and asked them about Rhine falls.  They were very helpful and when we told them we were driving with the help of a GPS they gave us the name of the city and the zip-code so we could enter it in the GPS.  They told us which routes to avoid due to snow.  The drive to Rhine was uneventful, here is a picture of a street as we drove beside it.

Street on our way to Rhine Falls

There are 2 ways to get to Rhine fall,  one is through Neuhausen, and that is the route we took.  From Neuhausen one gets to see the falls from a distance, the city from which we could see the falls much closer was closed so we have to settle for this view.

Rhine Falls

If you look at the picture closely, you will see a boat.  One can take the boat and walk up the stairs (white rails), till the red (Swiss flag).  It was so cold, so we decided against it and enjoyed the view from a distance.  We decided to have lunch there, so we walked around the city looking for places to eat.  It was a Sunday so almost all places were closed.  Istanbul cafe was open, and had a decent crowd in there (that is the way we decide a place is good or not, not being able to yelp).  We ordered 2 chicken dishes (don’t know the names), and some Turkish Tea.  The food was so good, and tea warmed us up instantly.  We made a note to ourselves to come back to San Francisco and check out some good Turkish place (we can yelp it!).  After lunch we headed back to Zurich, and then Milan.

Before we left Zurich we wanted to buy some Swizz chocolate so we were looking for a Migros or Coop.  We did not realize that these stores were closed on a Sunday, so no luck with chocolates (we were visiting Geneva in another few days, so I was not heartbroken).

The drive to Milan, was through Zurich City Center, so we took some pictures as we drove.

Building in Zurich City Center

And we headed to Milan, we were happily driving on the freeway and the GPS told us to take an exit and that put us on windy residential roads.  We got little worried and decided that we will stop by a tourist information and double check the route the GPS was telling us (we were mainly worried about roads being closed due to snow).  So in the GPS we mapped, tourist information near us, and it was 4 miles from us.  So we decided to drive there.  The quest for our tourist information office took us to Einsiedeln.  The drive up to Einsiedeln were windy roads and blankets of snow on both side of the road, pretty but little scary.  So we finally found our tourist information and since it was a Sunday they closed at noon and we were there around 1.30PM.

Einsiedeln Abbey

Since our quest for directions to Milan did not yield any result, we decided to trust our GPS (not that we had any other option) and head out to Milan. This drive was the most scenic drive we had in the whole trip.  Below is the picture of a canyon.

View along the Drive to Milan - I

View along the Drive to Milan - II

We were driving by the side of the mountains with water on one side.

Driving by the side of the mountain

View along the Drive to Milan - III

The terrain was mainly hilly so we drove mainly through tunnels.  Following the true cliche we played music of DDLJ (not that it needs a hyperlink) as we drove through mountains and valleys.

Mountain on the way to Milan

And boy oh boy was it cold.

Temperature

Our hotel was in Saronno, we got to Saronno (30 minutes before Milan), around 8.00 PM, we had a quick dinner.  Then we went to a grocery store, picked up some water and fruits.  By the time we got back to the hotel it had started snowing.  We went to bed wondering what was in store for us the next morning.

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