Travelogue: By Train to the Snow! Or How We Went on a Perfect Skiing Trip to Switzerland

There are many different ways to travel to Switzerland, the land of promise for many people. We chose one of the most enjoyable ones, the train. We'll explain how the journey from Prague to Switzerland goes in the following travelogue.

As the famous British philosopher Francis Bacon once said in his works, "If the mountain cannot go to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain." This is also how one could sum up in principle the purpose of our Swiss trip, which we took a few days ago. The only difference was that we were in the role of Mohammed, and the mountain was the snow, which we have not been getting much of lately at our altitudes.

We went to Switzerland by train, of course. The sleeper carriage that Czech Railways regularly dispatches on the train to Linz was a great way to get us around. It leaves Prague at 6:20 p.m. This carriage is then connected to another train in Linz, which takes it to Zurich. This is exactly how we traveled.

Shortly after 6 p.m., we were sitting in our compartment with our skis, which included a shower. Not long after we settled in, we got hungry, and so it was the turn of the dining car, which is regularly scheduled on the Southern Expresses towards Linz. The food prepared by JLV didn't disappoint this time either, and on the contrary, it was a great energy boost for the rest of the journey.

After a pleasant evening in the restaurant car, we headed back to our carriage. Ironically, the journey was not the shortest, as our carriage was at the complete opposite end of the train from the dining car. After we arrived in our compartment and performed our hygiene, we went to sleep very early as the wake-up call was scheduled relatively early.

Right on schedule, the steward woke us up on Friday morning and offered us breakfast, which was quite substantial by modest train standards. There was no shortage of yogurt, bagels, jam, tea, or juice, in short, it was almost like home. Shortly before seven o'clock, we got off at Buchs on the Austrian-Swiss border. From there, we took the regional train to Chur, where we were staying, in less than half an hour. As is usual in Switzerland, the journey was completely on schedule, and we were off the train at our destination, Chur, at 7:48 a.m. We then headed to our accommodation and then took the typical Swiss PostBus to the adjacent ski resorts.

Chur, where we stayed, is not only the center of the canton of Graubünden, but also the home of the famous Rhaetian Railway. This company operates its trains through much of the canton of Graubünden. It is the largest private railway company in the whole of Switzerland, having been founded in 1888. Well, private though. The majority of the company's ownership is held by the canton of Graubünden, with another significant share held by Switzerland. In addition, some Swiss municipalities also have minority stakes, and only a mere 4% of the shares are in purely private hands today.

Its network also leads to the town of Arosa, which has several slopes from the resort where we skied for 2 days. For the journey to Chur, we used the panoramic railway of the Rhaetian Railway, which on the way between these 2 towns overcomes elevations of more than 1000 m and offers impressive views, to say the least.

After a week's stay, it was time to leave. We said goodbye to Chur for once at around 9 p.m., when we boarded the regional train towards Buchs, where we also arrived without any problems in less than an hour. There we just had to change to the night train and travel to Prague. We woke up already in Bohemia, just before České Budějovice. By then it was breakfast time. Then we changed, packed, and got off at 10:38 a.m. at the Prague Central Station.

 

Source: Ondřej Čech's Travelogue