Day 8: Mulhouse to Munich

Sunday, June 16

We got up early this morning, wanting to catch a train to Bern at 7:49 and have a decent breakfast beforehand. Our breakfast was pretty nice, baguettes and croissants with hot chocolate, milk, and orange juice, ham and cheese. The milk was so creamy it tasted of butter, which was not as bad as you might think, but i've had the taste in my mouth since then and i'd kind of like it out. We're on a train to Bern now, and i'm drinking Mezzo Mix, which is an orange-flavored cola. Speaking of things that taste like other things, this just reminded me that in Paris we saw a great many ads for a tequila-flavored beer. Does that sound appealing to anybody? I saw a guy on one of our trains drinking one, after it was done he went back to the bar and got something more regular. Just saying.

So our plan was to leave Mulhouse at 7:49 to arrive in Bale at 8:20, and connect to a train to Bern departing at 8:31. The lesson to take away from all of this is that no, the trains in Europe don't always run on time. We've ridden six trains so far (not counting subways), and we're averaging 66%. Our train out of Mulhouse left the station 12 minutes late, with no explanation. If you're good at math, you'll notice that we were only supposed to have an 11 minute layover in Bale. We got to the platform just in time to see our train pull away.

Instead, we ended up on another train which listed Bern as one of its destinations, leaving at 8:59 with no additional transfers. This train is not listed in the official Eurail schedule, but after asking around a bit, we found that it is indeed covered by our passes. And that is where we are right now. Since we don't have the timetable for this train, we don't know when exatly it's getting in to Bern, but i suspect...actually i think we are in Bern right now.

One new bit of sad news, though...Amanda may have left our Rough Guide to Europe on the last train. We can't find it and she's reasonably sure she had it leaning up against the train wall, next to her seat, and can't remember grabbing it. It sucks, sure, but it's not the worst thing that's happened to us on the trip.

We are indeed in Bern. Signing off for the moment.

Bern was pretty cool. We had two objectives at this stop, and three hours to complete them: find the statue of a man eating a baby (yes, that is a real statue in Bern), and see some bears. See, Bern has a well-known thing with bears. Supposedly, and this was backed up by our neighbor Jim before we left, who also added wolves to the legend and was in Bern when he was in the Service, bears roam freely throughout the streets of Bern, and are really calm about it. According to a book i read (Weird Europe), and Jim, the bears and the people just leave each other alone, so long as they each mind their own business.

We got off of the train and somehow could not find the train station from the platform. Are we idiots? Maybe. But we walked back and forth several times and just could not figure a way past the tracks that got us into the adjoining building, which surely had to be the train station, but we couldn't verify it. So we just wandered aimlessly down the street.

Coming to a hotel, we decided to stop and see if they could help us locate the tourist information center, or at least point us toward bears. The girl at the desk was very helpful, giving us a map and a city guide, and circling points of interest on the map, including the park with the bears. I should have asked about the baby-eating statue, but it seemed like a weird thing to ask of someone like that; if we could find a tourist information center, i'd be less reserved about that request. As we left, i mentioned to Amanda that i was disappointed that the bears were all in one area; i thought they'd be roaming free. Perhaps they did still walk the streets sometimes, and just hung out in the park most of the time?

We passed the entrance to the train station minutes after leaving that hotel. It was located right next to the giant church whose bells would not stop ringing.

Disappointingly, stupid things like “safety” and “common sense” do exist in Bern, and the bears are all caged in a large park on one side of the city, right next to the Aare River on the side of a steep hill. We stood at the top of it, since that's where we walked up to, and got some images of the bears from there. There were only four visible, and all of them were taking naps.

So we headed down toward the river and walked along its bank through a pleasant nature trail, which had a steep hill covered in trees heading up one side, like a wall, and a steep dropoff straight into the river on the other. Not unlike New Zealand.

Coming to a bridge, we crossed, and ended up at the park Amanda was looking for, where i used the public restroom. It featured an innovative combination toilet/sink, where you did your business in a huge basin, which had a toilet seat that folded down from the wall behind it if needed, and then a spout on the left wall shot a stream of water into the basin from about chest level. It flushed like a hurricane. Then we alighted ourselves on the bank of the river and stuck our feet in it. Cold as ice but quite refreshing, it was just what we needed. We gave it a good soak and then began to make our way back to the train station.

I never did find that baby-eating statue, or anyone who looked like they could point me in its direction, but we did pass the Swiss Houses of Parliament and got an amazing view of the city from the top of a hill so steep, they built a trolley to take people up it (of course, we did not take the trolley). This might be a good time to mention that we never found the Left Luggage area of this train station, so i was stuck hauling our suitcase through all of Bern. Yeah, that nature trail? Rolled the suitcase right through that whole thing. Might need to replace the wheels after this trip.

Back at the train station, we thought to get lunch, not because we were necessarily hungry at that point, but because we knew that we might not get another opportunity for a while. Our next destination is Zug, from which we board a bus to the Hell Grottoes, and after we come back from that we are on a sleeper train all night to Munich. Lunch was expensive, but the food was not nearly as off-puttingly overpriced as the water. I said we'd just have water, the cashier asked if we'd like one large water to share, making it sound like a pitcher or carafe. We got a half liter plastic bottle and a couple glasses, and it cost 4.80 Swiss Francs (not sure how that translates to dollars – will figure that out when i next see the internet). But considering that our meals – half pitas stuffed full of delicious – were 7.80 each, i'm thinking that was some pricey water. I'm also thinking that Swiss Francs might be worth more than Euros. Switzerland is expensive – that's why we stayed in Mulhouse last night, we couldn't find accommodation in Bern for less than $300.

It is later. We are done with Zug and on our way to Zurich to board that aforementioned sleeper train, though we may not actually get a sleeper car. The Eurail pass is turning out not to meet expectations.

We arrived in Zug with one intention: to find Hell, or Hollgrotten. Sadly, it is Sunday, and the tourism office closed fifteen minutes before we arrived. I entered the convenience store across the hall from it and asked the way to the bus to Hell Grottoes, not remembering the German phrasing at that precise moment.

The cashier did not speak much English, but picked out the word “bus” and pointed me to the bus stop, where we found a kiosk with a computer to buy bus tickets that would not display in English. I ended up using my phone to translate each menu item individually, and came up with a price of four Swiss Francs (4CHF) per person, per direction. Ouch. The web site i'd been on back home for the direct bus service to the Grottoes had said 2.80CHF and led me to believe that might be round trip. That bus service was no where to be found, only this city metro bus.

We didn't go for it, instead choosing to return inside the train station and go consult with the people at the information desk, even though i was pretty sure they only did trains. As it turned out, not only could they book us bus tickets, they had a deal going on where you could get the round-trip bus tickets and admission to the site for 17CHF. I wasn't sure off the top of my head what the price for the Hell Grottoes was, so we decided to go for it. The total came to 34CHF, but when i ran my credit card, it showed the price in American dollars, at $38-some odd cents. So i guess the Swiss Franc is not more valuable than the Euro, and is pretty close to American dollars. So that water that i was bitching about earlier probably cost just over five bucks.

We had a little time to kill before the bus showed up, so we walked a couple blocks down to the lakefront. Took some pictures of ducks and mountains, then attempted to get ice cream, but the line was so long that we were afraid we'd miss our bus and headed back.

Our bus was already at the bus stop when we approached, but no driver was within. So we took the initiative and seated ourselves, as others were doing. When the driver returned, he did not question any one about their tickets, just drove away. As our vehicle progressed through the city, more people got on, some entering through the back door (strictly prohibited in Madison, where we come from) and he did not ask anyone for a bus ticket.

The bus dumped us off in the middle of nowhere, quite elevated from the city. The view was astounding. But nothing looked like a Hell Grottoes from where we stood. We were the only ones to get off the bus at that stop.

After exploring the vicinity for a few minutes, we found a sign pointing the way, but it appeared to be pointing us down a clearly-labeled private drive. Not seeing any other option, we trespassed blatantly into it and continued down the gravel road, which had given the initial impression of being a driveway. It soon came to a T, and there was another Hollgrotten pointing to the right. The signs led us, sometimes vaguely, through a thick wood and down yet another steep, muddy incline with rude stairs made with tree limbs, or sometimes living roots, and the mud pushed into a vaguely step-like shape. At the bottom of the hill, we came to some sort of power plant-looking complex (hydroelectric?) which was also clearly labeled as private property, but the Hollgrotten signs persisted in leading us through it and across a bridge, back into the forest.

It was a twenty minute walk from the bus stop to the caves, and from the ticket booth, an additional five to the entrance. We were unsure whether we needed to check in with the ticket booth before entering, but as there was no one there, we just went ahead and climbed the stairs to get in.

The entry itself was also unmanned, but there was one of those bar-things that you push and it rotates as you go through, you know what i'm talking about? They probably have a name, but i don't know what it is. There was also a slot to stick your ticket in. We were having trouble determining which of the pieces of paper given to us at the train station was the one intended for that slot, and it must have been noticeably confused over the security camera sticking out of the side of the miniature mountain, because after a moment there was a voice over a loudspeaker, asking us (i assume) what the problem was, in German. I tried confusedly to mutter something about just not knowing which item was the ticket, but couldn't get it out, so i blurted, “Do you speak English?” rather than my well-rehearsed “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

“Well, no, not well. Hold on.” It was silent for a moment, and then the entry bars rotated themselves until they were completely out of the way, and the voice said, “Go ahead.”

And so we ventured into Hell, on our own, just as the Weird Europe book said we would.

The grottoes are well lit, and quite silent. We were clearly the only ones inside, and we could hear every drip of the water seeping throughout as it toiled away at the long work of forming these rocks to its whims. It was beautiful. I filmed the entire experience continuously, except for one spot to change batteries, and when we were outside walking from one grotto to the next. This is another of those things that needs to be experienced visually, although if you watch my footage, you've the advantage that you won't be getting dripped on constantly, and you can choose your own temperature at which to view, rather than the humid coolness we experienced that i refer to as “pleasant” and Amanda calls “goddammit.”

As we exited the caverns, we were flagged down by a woman with poor English. She asked if we had purchased our tickets at the train station, to which we responded in the affirmative. We showed her the pieces of paper they'd left us with, and she took the ones she needed while leaving us with the ones which would get us back on the bus to return to the Zug train station. She then ran them through her computer and produced the tickets we should have used to get into the grottoes, thus explaining why none of our documents had given the impression of belonging in that hole. Not that we needed them at this point, but you know. Souvenirs.

The walk back featured us going up all of those mud-and-stick stairs while i muttered profanities under my breath.

Once again, the bus did not check our tickets. I felt like there was no real reason to buy bus tickets if that was going to be the case. I guess now we know if we're ever in Zug again (unlikely. I've decided to hate Switzerland).

I was still quite thirsty when we'd arrived back at the station. In fact i've been ridiculously thirsty this entire trip, which has been unfortunate, since drinks cost so damn much. A bottle of soda typically runs two Euros on this continent, but in Switzerland, it's generally 2.50CHF or more, and a bottle of water always costs a whole extra Swiss Franc. So i was starting to wonder why water's so expensive in Switzerland, like if there's a shortage or something, like they can't get the snow down from the mountains or whatever, and then we walk outside of the train station for some fresh air, and there is a bubbler in the middle of the street that is just running constantly. So here they are, running their tap water straight into the drain when nobody's there to do anything about it, and on the other hand charging me five dollars for a half-liter bottle with my lunch.

We filled up our water bottle at that fountain and drank it completely down maybe once and a half before stowing the full bottle in our bag and moving on to lunch. After walking about town for a few blocks, we returned to the train station, unimpressed with the prices they were charging for the most basic meals. There was a sandwich shop within the train station that seemed to have (slightly) more reasonable prices, so that's where we got our noms on. Amanda had a sandwich made out of a pretzel bagel with some kind of fancy fish meat on it (i know the taste was familiar – couldn't quite place it. Smoked salmon?) and i had a more basic sandwich. We also ordered a strawberry milkshake that was kind of gross.

Overall impression of Switzerland: pretty, but expensive, and the food sucks.

We caught and earlier train back to Zurich (we were in Zurich earlier – had a connection there between Bern and Zug. We were in Zurich for a total of seven minutes) than originally planned, because our luck with trains being on time has not been the greatest and we absolutely could not miss our overnight train to Munich.

It did not turn out to be a sleeper car. We ended up stuck in a Second-Class box with four other seats and this weird girl who took up two of them. Halfway through the night a railway employee came through and packed two big dudes in with us. Yes, i'm writing this later still than when i started this part of the entry up there by saying “may not get a sleeper car” and yes, i'm kind of pissed about the way things turned out. A full day later, in fact, so i've got the hindsight and it's angry. Things aren't going to turn out any better tonight, but i'll get to that when i get to today's entry, next.