We said our goodbyes to Jarrod, Tim and Isaac this morning at 6.30am. After an extra goodbye to Jarrod who left his puffer jacket in our hotel room and had to make an extra trip up to the third floor to get it, they headed for Munich airport for their flight home to Australia.

The 11 remaining tourists met in the lobby at 8am and rolled our suitcases to the train station for our 8.53am train to Zurich. We were there in plenty of time to grab croissants and pastries for breakfast, a cup of the worst coffee we’ve had yet, and also had time to work out the correct carriage and our correct seats for this trip.

Three and a half hours later we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland and had 8 minutes to get all our bags off the train and get to platform 7 for our next train, a 50 minute ride to Lucerne.

Once there we rolled our bags down a main street to our new hotel, Hotel Cascada. With breakfast included and free minibar use, we enjoyed our still and sparkling waters and Coke, as well as a much better coffee from the pod machine in the room. The kids went to McDonalds back near the train station for lunch, while Ross and Sam explored and found some quiches for us at a cafe nearby, and I stayed in the room with my foot up because my ankle has packed it in again.

We then congregated in the lobby and did our own walking tour of the Old Town. I had used the time elevating my foot to read every brochure available in the room, so took everyone to the Chapel Bridge, Needle Dam, Spreuer Bridge (built in 1407 as part of the city’s fortification efforts) and other sites. We even wandered as far up as the Lion Monument.

While this is another beautiful city with picture-perfect mountains in the backdrop, it is an expensive city. We struggled to find a restaurant for less than 50 Swiss francs a head – which doesn’t sound terrible until you times that by 11 at our exchange rate which means it will be almost A$100 each. We settled for takeaway pizza in our rooms!

While everyone kept walking in the “strollable” city as it is called, I caught the bus back to our hotel after our exploring, because transport is free for tourists who stay in the city and pay the city tax.

We are missing Jarrod and his organisation, but impressed ourselves getting here without his help today! We are also thankful for his detailed preparation including spreadsheets and budgets – Luke checked it to compare what we were charged when we arrived, and when we questioned it, the hotel was very apologetic that they had mistakenly overcharged us A$2k!

I was able to update Jarrod who was sitting at Abu Dhabi airport waiting for their second flight which was delayed an hour, and he suggested that “saving“ could be added to the boys’ beer budget, but it might just cover our meals while here!