The breakfast at Salzburg was pretty good, especially the cake was yummy. Yoghurt seems to feature in the breakfast in Europe, at least in Italy and Austria so far, and I loved it along with the fruits on offer. We kicked off quite early in the morning having only one aim; to reach Lucerne in time for some shopping and dinner. We heard that the shops close there by 4pm with some shops open till 6pm, so it was a rush against time from the start.
We went to Innsbruck first, stopping briefly at Auto Grill for some hot chocolate (Shocolade in these parts). Innsbruck is a small town in Austria with a population of about 150k, named after the Inns river that flows through the town with a fabulous background of the Austrian Alps. Innsbruck immediately struck me as a more commercial town than Salzburg, with buses and trams, residential apartments and a very lively Christmas atmosphere. The small streets had been decorated very well by the residents, with various life-size dolls hanging alongside the houses. It was very different and an exciting experience.
The world famous crystal shop Swarovski is based out of Innsbruck with a factory nearby. It was a very rushed, but very enjoyable experience looking through their impressive collection. Once we were done with a flower and bird at Swarovski, we were on the road again towards Switzerland. The mountain ranges were whiter, with more snow capped mountains filling up my camera. I have taken more than a thousand pictures so far under 5 days, and it can only get bigger. Suddenly, I realized that I haven’t changed the time zone on my camera, ensuring that the pictures were embossed with the date as of Singapore, rendering all photos taken after 5pm to be the next date. I had realized this when I was at the Singapore airport, but then I totally misjudged my memory power, leading to this pathetic mistake.
By this time, the tour manager had established a rapport with the traveling party, and started rambling with his life story interlaced with humor and wit. He smartly injects his meaningless talks with points of note, history, geography, philosophy, art and music. I have a feeling that he might be worried about his customers being bored, but with a scenery as abound as the one outside, that’s the last thing to happen even on 6-7 hr journey between places. The Alps has countless tunnels, and some of it is quite long. Sometimes, it acts as a distraction to a photo shoot, but usually offers some breather between spectacular views, where we can try to doze off. Invariably the eyes open once the sun comes out of the other end. I couldn’t help admiring the hard work that should have gone into building these highways in these places.
We passed through into Switzerland at about 2.30pm, a new country and a new currency for the next two days. Liechtenstein is a small principality of about 160 sq km, which we passed within 10 minutes. Next up was the highway to Luzern, which is the German form of Lucerne. I have read a lot about this wonderful place, which is a 20 mins walk end to end and is the tourist capital of Switzerland, as three of the famous mountains are accessible from here, and it has a beautiful lake nicknamed the Swan Lake, which is full of, guess what, swans. Switzerland is not all snow as people expect. It is a very nice mix of green hillsides, snow capped mountains and beautiful lakes all blended into one. Unity in diversity also applies to its languages and religion, with German, French and Italian all widely spoken. We arrived at 3.30pm and were supposed to buy whatever we can by 6pm.
We went to Bucharer, which is the largest retailer of watches and jeweler in Switzerland, famous for its premium Rolex. Pressed for time, we threw in whatever we could get our hands on, and not shockingly raked up a huge bill. We then went out to find out a pitch dark sky at 4.10pm and the wind blowing extremely cold. We went to the next shop that was open and shopped around a bit more, and then got some bread to munch for dinner. We spotted a couple of Indian honeymooners shopping around as well. People were running here and there to find an open shop without much luck. Having not had lunch and exposed to an extreme cold, I was running a mild headache and desperately wanted to eat something. We went to the nearby McDonalds to hear that they have closed. I came back to the central square by the lake only to find that one of my gloves had disappeared. The cold weather took over and made my hands numb within a few minutes. Never underestimate the cold, never. I was shaking all over at 5pm. Dropping all the bags in the bus, I went back in search of the missing glove. I traced back a couple of shops we had gone into, but the people here are least interested in entertaining people after their closure time, even if the person is desperately searching for his glove without which he is certain to freeze to death :P With fervent prayers in my lips, I ran around to McDonalds when a guy came out. I went around to check on my glove and caught him just as he was about to throw the glove into the bin. God does exist in cold dark high corners of the world at 6pm! What an experience today was. Tomorrow is the highlight of my trip, going on top of a 10000 feet high snowy mountain. Can’t wait to get started, with my gloves on :)
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