Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Travel Day to Zürich



SWISS FACT-OF-THE-DAY


Switzerland is an incredibly beautiful country inhabited by lots of wonderful people.


I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, too excited about our trip to Spain and then to California to sleep. Oh well, at least I got a lot of internet work out of the way.


At about 7:40 a.m., there was a knock at our door. It was Ueli with "travel food" for our train trip to the Zürich Airport at about midday. 


And Oh SO Good For You Too!


Ueli's Care package included two wonderful sandwiches AND two kinds of Thun chocolates, which were actually works of art.


I also was able today to make a final accounting of my train travel costs this season. Back in late February I purchased a Swiss Rail Half Price Card that does just that. I bought one for Laurie the day she touched down in Zürich on May 31st. The card cost us 165 Swiss Francs each but was well worth it!


After recouping our intial buy-in costs of the Half Price Card,  I saved 1,020.40 Swiss Francs and Laurie saved 297.10 Swiss Francs. That is a total savings of 1,317.50 Swiss Francs which equals $1340.53 USD.


A truly good buy if you ask me!


As we were leaving Helvetica for the last time, both John and Cindy arrived and very graciously helped us tote our luggage down the stairs and onto our final ride on the #31 bus to the Thun Bahnhof.


We caught the direct train to the airport with no problems and once there, it was time for some bag weighing on the official airport scales to somehow shift the contents to meet the required maximum weight limits of 23 kilos for each of our two large bags that will go into the cargo hold, and the 8 kilos maximum limit for each of our two carry-on bags.


That being accomplished, the problem then was the weight of our two backpacks. Thank God for cargo shorts!!!


We are now securely esconced in our hotel near the Zürich Airport and have decided to be low key tonight and not go into the Swiss financial capital. We need to rest up for our big week in toasty Spain!


The weather forecast for our eight days in Spain call for some interesting temperatures to say the least:


Thursday, July 12 - Madrid 90ºF/32.2ºC


Friday, July 13 - Sevilla 101ºF/38.3ºC
Saturday, July 14 - Sevilla 102ºF/38.8ºC


Sunday, July 15 - Granada 94ºF/34.4ºC
Monday, July 16 - Granada 93ºF/33.8ºC


Tuesday, July 17 - Córdoba 101ºF/38.3ºC
Wednesday, July 18 - Córdoba 10oºF/37.7ºC


Thursday, July 19 - Madrid 96ºF/35.5ºC


On our return to California, the forecast is balmy:


Thursday, July 19 - Camarillo 70ºF/21.1ºC


Last night in Madrid


Nick Lloyd is the man who runs the great Spanish Civil War tours in Barcelona. He posted this picture today of the estimated 150,000 people who marched into Puerta del Sol last night at 2:00 a.m. to support coal miners who are on strike all over Spain. Many of these coal miners had walked 400 km over the past 18 days from all parts of the Iberian peninsula to the Spanish capital to emphasize their plight.


For more information on this strike and march go to:
http://www.marxist.com/spain-miners-strike.htm


Our hotel in Madrid is about three blocks from Puerta del Sol. This labor unrest could get interesting.

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