Awoke early this morning around 6:30am. It was still dark outside. We showered and and got our things together and after one more check of the apartment we headed out the door with our bags. Into the elevator in two shifts as this building has the smallest elevator I've ever been in. It can just fit two people into it, and you certainly wouldn't want to be fat.
I handed the keys back in to the owner and we were now officially homeless in Paris. We wandered around the corner and down the street and were lucky to flag down the first taxi that passed us. Bags loaded we were off to Gare de Lyon train station for our journey to Zurich in Switzerland.
We were a few hours early so had plenty of time to find a cafe and get some breakfast. There is a famous restaurant/cafe in the station called Le Train Bleu that is absolutely stunning. Ornate, decadent in the style of a palace. Unfortunately it was up a flight of stairs so we could only wander up one at a time to have a look inside, but it is well worth the look and even eating in if you are in Paris. It is very pricey, but this is probably one of the most amazingly decorated restaurants you would find anywhere in the world. We'll definately have to head there on our next visit to Paris.
The time for our train departure approached so we headed down and made our way to the platform, found our carriage on the TGV high speed train and climbed aboard. We located our seats and settled in. We were traveling first class and the seats were large and comfortable with plenty of room to stretch out. About ten minutes later the train departed and we were treated to some amazing French and Swiss countryside scenery during the journey, with snow starting to appear as we got closer to Zurich. The trip took around four and half hours so we arrived in Zurich early afternoon. Made our way from the train station to our hotel which was about a 15 minute walk away, although up a few steep hills. We were happy to have luggage on wheels.
We checked into our hotel and made our way up to the room. Nothing fancy, but certainly comfortable and fit for our night stopover here in Zurich. After a brief rest we headed back down the hill to explore Zurich. We walked around the great old town area that is a collection of great cobble stoned lanes of bars, restaurants, shops, strip clubs and some very old churches. It has a great feel to it and a very relaxed vibe. It was very cold outside though, around -5 C so even with gloves, hats, jackets, and scarves it was still very cold. After walking around for almost two hours Sharon was starting to feel very cold and numb so a stop in a Tea Cafe was in order to warm ourselves back up.
We managed to find a great little tea cafe that had a huge selection of different teas, coffees, hot chocolates and a few pastries. We ordered some warm drinks and settled in for the next 45 minutes.
We then headed back out into the now dark and very cold early evening and started to wander back along the lanes we had come down. We found soon found a bar/restaurant that looked great and some some good vegetarian food options so we decided this was a good stop for dinner and some drinks. We ordered a vege burger with salad and fries and some vegetarian spring rolls. I had a local weiss beer and Sharon ordered some red wine. We stayed for almost two hours enjoying the atmosphere. This particular bar seemed to be a local place for the younger people to hang in and was playing some great music and just had a really cool vibe about it so it seems it was a good find.
Around 9:30pm we headed back up to our hotel, showered and got our bags mostly packed up ready for the next part of our train journey tomorrow.
Photos to follow later.
