I usually do Free & Easy Travel thus a lot of "Homeworks" needs to be done before each trip and I find it a waste to just dump it one side after all my hard work. So decided to to have a blog to record some of this up , hopefully someone might find this useful for them.
There is 3 trains for Glacier Express per day departing from St.Moritz 7:02AM , 9:15AM and 10:20AM in the summer ( detail timetable here) But do note that for the early train at 7:02AM , it only stop at Brig and does not stop at Zermatt ( Full route of Glacier Express is from St. Moritz <-> Zermatt). We opt for the early train for the following reasons : 1) Reach Zermatt earlier cos the 9:15AM train will only reach Zermatt at 17:10 which almost whole day is gone. We opt to do St. Moritz -> Brig ->Visp -> Zermatt , this allowed us to reach Zermatt by 15:14 instead of 15:51 if we do St. Moritz -> Brig -> Zermatt ( because of the 40 min waiting time for the connecting train at Brig).
We stay the Best Western Hotel Butterly for the night which is about 3 min walk from the station. Do note that Zermatt is one of the Car-free town in Switzerland.After check in , we decided to explore the town , in hope to see the Matterhorn before going for dinner at RESTAURANT SCHÄFERSTUBE for their famous Black-faced Lamb.
There are many shops selling adventure wear and gear in town and we keep trying to look for Matterhorn instead but yet cannot see it ( turn out we facing wrong direction/angle ). We visited the old village and then try to seek out a view point for the Matterhorn, only to find out the best view point on the bridge is still under renovation. Also it was quite a cloudy day so the shy Matterhorn is covered by clouds like the banner pic above.
We only managed to get a reservation for the restaurant at 8:30PM so after exploring the town , we went to get some light snack ( sausages , Mcd Chicken wings which was very good and Chocolates ) and headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner.
Raclette and the lamb was really good while the cheese fondue consist of too much white wine for my taste. The lamb was very expensive though , 56CHF/portion BUT you can actually break it into 2 portions for sharing. Even if you are eating alone , they will split it into 2 portion of 3 pcs each then when you are done , they will serve you another portion. I think the reason is to make sure you get to eat the meat warm instead of serving you the whole portion then by the time u reach the last piece maybe it already turned cold. Becareful if you see a "harmless" liquid know as "Schnapps" , think it's some fruit distilled wine which usually enjoyed after meal , the one we tried here , when asked is about 40% Alcohol ! ( We are so innocent to think that it just normal sweet dessert wine cos when we point at it and order , the lady told us that is for after meal )
<->*Note : You can use Half card + Day saver pass for Glacier Express ( Same as Bernina Express ) , Normal fare is 150 CHF ( First class for St.Moritz to Brig ) + 33 CHF ( seat reservation fee ) = 183 CHF/pax , But with Half Care you will pay only 75 CHF ( First class for St.Moritz to Brig ) + 33 CHF ( seat reservation fee ) = 103 CHF/pax. IF using my method , you will only pay 49 CHF ( First class Day saver) + 33 CHF = 82 CHF for the whole trip which will save you 101 CHF ( of cos not counting the cost of a Half card at 120 CHF ( but you can use this card for 1 month )
If you like train travel , then you must come to Switzerland , there is 5 famous scenic train route here , namely : The Golden Pass Line , Glacier Express, Bernina Express , Voralpen Express and Gotthard Panorama Express. ( more detail informations can be found here). We will be covering almost 3 of the route for this trip thus that is the reason why we choose to stay in St.Moritz as this is one of the town that will have both Glacier Express and Bernina Express.
We had actually planned to stay in Chur but if we stayed there, either we have to stay also one night in St.Moritz or we might need to waste time taking to and fro train ride. Bernina Express route ( train + bus ) start from Chur and ends at Tirano,Italy then followed by a bus route to Lugano, our plan is just to take the train ride to Tirano and then back , so we can take the Glacier Express to Zermatt next day. If we were to stay at Chur , we will need to use about 4 hrs to Tirano then another 4 hrs back to Chur ( which Glacier express will also past by ). So instead we use yesterday to travel another 2 hrs to stay at St.Moritz then today we only need to travel 2 hrs to Tirano and then another 2 hrs back.
We took the 9:39am Bernina Express, which will reach Tirano at 12 pm. Do note that regular train travels the same route as Bernina Express , the only different is 1) You need to reserve a seat on Bernina express , 2) Bernina Express is Panoramic ( meaning it's aircon-ed but enclosed, making it not so good for taking photos because of the reflection BUT in better the carriages there are some part where the windows can be lower for better photo taking.), 3) Benina Express only has a few trains/day and think it only runs from May through November.We had planned to take one way on Bernina express then return using the normal local trains at 1:40pm. Plan is just to take a look and can said that i visited Italy and had authentic Italy pizza.@_@
Bernina Express will only stop at certain stop along the way for boarding and alighting , but it will stop at the station of Alp Grüm for like 10-15 min for passengers to get down and take pictures.
Upon reaching Tirano , we walk around a bit and then decided to take our lunch at Ristorante Pizzeria across the train station as we need to catch the 1pm/1:40pm train back. The Pizza was great and i can proudly stated that I visited Italy and had authentic Italian pizza !
Free Pass for bus and mountain railways
Next we took to local train back to St.Mortiz but along the way we stop at Punt Muragl Staz to visit Muottas Muragl ( cos saw that it has very nice sunset online ). If you are staying for more then ONE night in St. Moritz area, some hotels will give you a free pass for bus or mountain railways , so it actually free for us to go up to the mountain using the pass for the funicular.
Famous Brusio Spiral Viaduct
By the time we reach the top it was already about 5 pm, it was quite a clear day so we just hike around the area then was thinking maybe we should just stay for sunset and maybe can take night view photo of the St. Moritz town. But we stayed until almost 8pm and the sky was not even dark yet.
We decided to leave and take the 8:15 PM funicular down. From the bus stop in from of the funicular station , take Bus 1 back to St.Moritz. ( Do note that the Bus 1 stop in the same bus stop for both direction, so best to check with driver that it's the correct direction ) By the time we reach back hotel it's already 9pm.
Hotel packed Breakfast
As we were leaving very early tomorrow for Glacier Express , we had asked the hotel to pre pack our breakfast to eat onboard.
Today will be our last day in Austria , we will be making our way to the 2nd part of our holiday in Switzerland. From Innsbruck to St.Moritz is about 5 hours, first we will take a 2h30m train from Innsbruck to Sargans , then transfer to another train for about 20 min to Chur (Switzerland) and finally another 2h train from Chur to St. Moritz. We left Innsbruck at 15:48 and we only reach St.Moritz at 20:58 !
Since we had some time to kill before our train in the afternoon , we check out early and visited HOFKIRCHE : The Emperor's Tomb and Imperial Palace (Hofburg). By around 10:30 am we already completed both places and was deciding if we should still visit some other places of interest in the city or should we venture out to the Swarovski Crystal Worlds. In the end we choose to visit the Swarovski Crystal Worlds which is about 30 min by bus from the city. There is a shuttle bus that runs between Innsbruck and the Swarovski Crystal Worlds 4 times a day at specific timing OR you can take bus 4125 to Wattens Kristallwelten/B171, think have to top up some fares with Innsbruck card (can't really remember now ) then walk about 7 min to the Crystal world.
We spent about 1 hr + here and we actually find it quite interesting as they have different theme room. We do find it a bit bit rush as we need to make sure we get back in time to collect our luggages from the hotel and then get on the train to St. Moritz.
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We will be staying here at Hotel Soldanella for 2 nights , it's about 15 min walk from the main train station. By the time we reach it was almost 9 pm , lucky the small kiosk at the train station was still open as all supermarket are closed and also the next day is sunday which all supermarket will not be open as well ( off peak season) . So after check in , we just cooked our dinner and rest for the night cos we are booked for the Bernina express to Tirano in the next morning.
