Thursday, July 16th
Walter had planned a very special itinerary of travel by train on this day. He had everything planned out to the minute, and because Swiss trains are so punctual, the schedule worked seamlessly. We left the house early in the morning and walked a block to a nearby bus stop. The city bus took us to the Aarau train station. From there we took a train to the main station in Zurich. We walked to a different track where within minutes we had boarded a train headed to Lugano near the Italian border.
Our route passed by Lake Zug and Lake Lucerne. Although the route was scenic it was a bit frustrating trying to get good photos without reflections in the window.
Our destination, however, was not Lugano. After about one hour forty five minutes we got off the train at Göschenen, a tiny village of 458 inhabitants at the northern end of the Gotthard Tunnel.
Here we boarded another train to take us to Andermatt.
After just a ten minute ride, we arrived at Andermatt, a village of 1,500 people but with a lot of modern development as a ski resort.
We had a short layover here, and we had a chance to have something to drink and use the restroom at the train station. Our next train was to the village of Realp. It's just a 12 minute ride, but the scenery was becoming seriously dramatic. We were in the Saint Gotthard Massif, the heart of the Swiss Alps.
We got off at the little station of Realp.
Realp has a population of just 142 people.
This is where we will begin the reason for our complicated multi-train journey. Here we will board the Furka Mountain Steam Railway.
Next post... traveling through the Alps on a one hundred year old train!
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