Sunday 20 October 2024 – Estavayer-le-Lac
Estavayer-le-Lac is on the southern shore of Lake Neuchâtel. You get there on the A1 motorway, and before entering Swiss territory you have to buy a 40 CHF (about €40) vignette to drive freely on all of Switzerland's roads. Coming from France, it seems too good to be true. Our Swiss neighbours only pay €40 a year to use all their motorways? Well, yes! And the infrastructure is all of excellent quality.
We come off at the Estavayer-le-Lac exit around 4 pm to meet one of Stéphane's cousins. He has lived in Switzerland for ten years and started his family there. In the canton of Fribourg, right on the lakeshore, the little town offers a contrast between the modernity of its big Elsa dairy plant and its cobbled medieval centre. The lake and surrounding mountains add a pleasant charm.
Life seems good here, as Clément confirms. He can't see himself ever going back to live and work in France. After a tour of the town and its lakeside promenade, we head back up to enjoy the dinner he has made for us: a Swiss fondue. Stomachs full of cheese, we go to bed ready to face the next day.
Monday 21 October 2024 – Estavayer-le-Lac → Chur
After a leisurely wake-up and a hearty breakfast, it's time to leave Lake Neuchâtel behind and head for Chur. We follow the A1, then A2, then A3 in neat sequence. Around noon we need fuel and take the opportunity to eat in what looks in every respect like a canteen-style chain restaurant, only much more luxurious. Back on the road in the early afternoon, we turn round to the back seat and see that Clémence has fallen asleep.
She's still asleep when we arrive in Chur, which lets us look for parking calmly. Because even though it only has 38,000 inhabitants, Chur is a dense town where parking for free is very hard. We decide to leave our car out of the way and walk 1.5 kilometres to the hotel in the pedestrian centre. There, a main street, the Poststrasse, cuts the town in two and splits the rest into cute lanes and well-designed squares. The Swiss don't forget children and lavish them with really well-designed parks.
Chur is also a hilly town, which means you sometimes have to climb steep slopes to reach certain corners. Overall, Chur reminds us of Japan. Everything seems well organised, clean and modern, while carefully preserving the soul of past centuries. Although it's in a corner of the country, the town isn't isolated at all and even has a superb station with about ten platforms. That's where our little train adventure starts tomorrow.
Where we slept: the Comfort Hotel Post right in the centre of Chur is very pleasant. The three-bed room has enough space. The bathroom is shared and breakfast is included.
Tuesday 22 October 2024 – Chur → Pontresina
Chur station is really big for such a small town, with a good ten platforms. The rail traffic is impressive in its flow and density; trains stop every two minutes. Since we're early, we watch the ballet of locomotives and freight wagons carrying gas, fuel and even huge tree trunks.
Our train is already at the platform and we can get straight on. The Bernina Express crosses the mountains of the Graubünden region and finally descends into Italy, at Tirano. It's often listed among luxury trains and tickets can run to hundreds of euros. Fortunately we find a workaround by searching online. It turns out that the Bernina Express, strictly speaking, is just two luxury carriages attached to the front of ordinary trains. So you only need to buy standard tickets to take it and enjoy the same view, but in standard carriages.
There are only advantages to doing this. First, we don't book a specific seat, which lets us get on and off at the stations that interest us, paying for each section separately. Second, the ordinary carriages have windows that open fully, unlike the rich people's carriages. From Chur, the train climbs slowly through the valley, first following the Rhine to Bonaduz. It makes its way calmly to Pontresina, a ski resort at 1,800 metres.
This little town is little known, probably overshadowed by the global fame of its cousin St. Moritz. Everything is cheaper on this side, and after dropping our bags at the hotel we take the chairlift, one of Clémence's passions. The Swiss always think of children, and a big playground awaits us after the ride up through spectacular scenery. The sun is shining brightly, the wind has taken the day off and we enjoy these moments of pure relaxation, watching our daughter play energetically.
Not the least bit tired, she even holds out very well at the restaurant in the evening. Once again the Swiss amaze us: the place, although very chic, has a play area. That's extremely rare in France, and Clémence seems to know it, as she makes the most of it all evening.
Where we slept: Hotel Restaurant Rosatsch in Pontresina. A very big room with a cot awaits us. The bathroom is roomy with a huge bathtub.
Wednesday 23 October 2024 – Pontresina → Tirano
Since our hotel room is spacious, with a small table elegantly placed in a corner, that's where we have breakfast with supplies bought at the supermarket the day before. Clémence wakes up unusually early, around 7, and we have to kill some time before catching the 10:07 train. Fortunately she isn't hard to keep busy, as the smallest discovery amazes her.
She jumps for joy when we announce we're leaving for the station, and at the idea of climbing into the hiking backpack, where she loves to be. At 9:30 we start down towards Pontresina station. We're a little early on the platform, but there's so much activity that we have plenty to watch. Trains come one after another and ours arrives soon enough. We settle comfortably into the almost empty second-class carriage to start the climb up this side of the Alps. The slope becomes so steep that the tracks keep snaking to soften it, and the train climbs at a good pace, braving the gradient.
At Diavolezza we finally reach the summit at 2,200 metres. Here the landscape becomes almost lunar and rocky. Mountain lakes appear regularly along the line. On the way down towards Italy and Tirano, we stop at Poschiavo, the last Swiss town. We'd hesitated about booking a night's hotel here, and visiting the town we're glad we chose Italy. This little village has nothing very exciting apart from a few handsome buildings and the ever-present surrounding mountains. The rain doesn't help, and Clémence falls asleep in the backpack, perhaps lulled by the gentle patter of drops on her hood.
After taking the train for the last half-hour of the journey, we arrive on Italian soil. We can't miss it: you can feel it in the omnipresence of cars in public space. You have to wait whole minutes at traffic lights, and lorries race past. Tirano probably suffers from being the last town before Switzerland. Cross-border workers presumably try to earn a better living in Switzerland for the same job, and nobody can blame them.
But Tirano really feels like a through-town, with heavy lorry traffic and constant noise. Still, it has the charm of Italian towns, with its cobbled streets and churches. That evening, we take the opportunity to enjoy excellent Italian food once again.
Where we slept: I Rondini offers a very simple room with a bathroom and a shared kitchen. That's all we need.
Thursday 24 October 2024 – Tirano → Celerina
At breakfast we share coffee with an Irish couple who slept in the room next to ours. Our little experience of the train between Chur and Tirano already lets us give them a few wise tips on the most spectacular stops.
They're from the Galway area and are on a journey across Europe by train. They set off from Thessaloniki in Greece and are making their way home at leisure over a month. Their experience amazes us and we love their stories. We don't walk to Tirano station together, but we end up on the same 10:08 train. Mist fills the mountains, clinging to the trees and adding a mystical touch to the landscape.
An hour after setting off, the train reaches Alp Grüm station. More than just a station, it's also a hotel and restaurant, and since the train is the only access, the place is completely cut off between 8 pm and 8 am. It's a haven of peace sought after by people looking to disconnect.
At noon we reach Diavolezza station, on a small open plateau. From here you can go straight up in a big cable car to a high-altitude station at 3,000 metres. Carried up by the machine, we slowly realise there's plenty of snow on the peaks. And after crossing a thick cloud, as in a dream, ski slopes appear, raced down at full speed by seasoned skiers.
It's 2 degrees up there; we're clearly not dressed warmly enough, but the scenery is fascinating. A huge glacier dominates the landscape, covered in ice. Everything around us is white, and Clémence has fun pushing snow into the void from the wooden platform. On the way down, she's fascinated by all the gear people bring down in the cable car: skis, slalom poles, a sledge, bags of laundry.
Back on the red train, we learn the hard way that Swiss trains aren't always perfect. We'd read everywhere that all trains stop at Celerina, but clearly not, as we watch the station go by from the windows. We'd needed to press a button to request a stop at that particular station. The next station is St. Moritz, a town we'd wanted to avoid so as not to see its opulence.
Rather than wait an hour for the next train, we decide to walk the 2 kilometres to the hotel. Clémence jumps into her backpack, Stéphane takes one bag in front and one behind, and we follow the path through the forest to Celerina. After 30 minutes' walk we finally reach the All In One Hotel, and even though we arrive before check-in, our room is ready.
It's perfect for Clémence to have a little nap and for us to take a break from parenting. We go down to the hotel bar, order two coffees and catch our breath. Travelling from place to place with a child is rewarding and enriching, but the mental load is constant, so the little pressure-release valve of nap time is always welcome. Cassandre takes the chance to go for a run in this superb landscape.
The hotel literature tells Stéphane that this is where the skeleton, the Olympic sliding sport, was invented. Some of the little town's stations were even built to bring athletes back up to the start of the run. Because otherwise it doesn't have much going for it. We do the rounds to buy something to eat tonight and so Clémence can play at a playground.
It starts snowing around 6 pm, and since we're not really equipped, we head back to the hotel. After a shower, we eat in the room, put Clémence to bed and go down to the bar. We should have guessed: the place, although fairly refined, has a children's play area too. The Swiss never cease to surprise us.
Where we slept: the All in One hotel in Celerina. A strange mix of youth hostel and pompous hotel, too expensive for what's on offer.
Friday 25 October 2024 – Celerina → Chur
At the breakfast buffet we realise we really are somewhere with German influence, as almost all the options are savoury. It makes us reflect on our own habits, because in the end, why not? We've always looked at German breakfasts with surprise, but isn't it actually a better way to start the day?
All three of us well fortified, we head for the station with an idea in mind. On the Swiss railway website, we saw that our train to Chur has a family carriage with a play area. On the platform we're still sceptical, but when the locomotive pulls in and slows gently in the misty morning, we find ourselves almost right in front of the carriage in question.
Clémence can't see it from the platform, and only realises as she steps through the doors. She takes off her shoes immediately and races to the slide. What joy! We sit next to her but can keep half an eye on her while enjoying the splendid scenery on the way down to Chur. Of course she sometimes gets bored and comes over to us, but the Swiss have an answer for that too.
On several tables in the carriage, games are built into the structure itself. That lets us play with an abacus and a memory game. Time flies, and soon the train is running alongside the Rhine again, a sign it's about to arrive in Chur. We step off the train at noon on the dot, marking the end of this unforgettable little trip of a few days.
