Swiss and Austrian Alps Trip – September 2021

Today we travel home after our 23 days in Europe.  We are glad to be going home, but also sad to be leaving.  As is typical for these long trips, especially an all land trip with out any relaxing “At Sea” cruise days, we are getting a little worn out.  When we get close to the end of these trips, we just loose a little of the energy that comes with the initial excitement of traveling that was keeping us going so strong early on.

We set an alarm for 6:00 AM, but I was already awake about 5:50 AM, so I got up to get my coffee and to eat breakfast.  We had scheduled a little over an hour for us to get ready, eat a little breakfast and to finish our packing before we needed to leave the apartment at 7:10 AM to walk to the bus stop.  

I went ahead and purchased our bus tickets online through the app so we would have those ready.  I then went ahead and purchased our train tickets through the DB Bahn App.   DB Bahn is the German Train Company, and since we are going from here in Austria and ending in Munich, Germany, it will be on a German train.  I probably could have also purchased them through the Austrian Train Company OBB, but elected to use DB Bahn instead, which we have used on other trips in the past.  

When I went to purchase the tickets, I did not realize that although we had a login from the past, and had used it to purchase tickets online for other trips, there was no stored credit card for phone app purchases.  Also, Stephanie was not listed as a second passenger.  I had to add all of those items into the DB Bahn App before I could proceed.  I also realized that we should have had a credit for a ticket cancellation we made for our cruise trip that was cancelled in late 2019.  We had purchased a super saver train ticket for travel in Germany because we were flying into Berlin before the cruise.  I could not find the email that I thought I received giving us the credit, and time was not on our side to search for very long this morning.  I had already spent about 15 minutes setting up the app for the ticket purchase, and had not yet even made the purchase.  

I gave up on the credit, I think it had long ago expired anyway, and purchased the train tickets from Salzburg to the Munich Airport.  Now that all of the tickets were purchased and on my phone as PDF files, I headed to the shower.  Stephanie was up by now and getting ready.  It is amazing how quickly time passes when we seem to be on a tight schedule.

Once we were both dressed, we finished packing the last items into the suitcases and weighed them with our luggage scale.  Both were about 42 pounds, well under the 50 pound limit for our flight, so all was good.  We still needed to keep out some warmer clothes for layers, it was about 45 degrees in Salzburg this morning, and we had about a 10 minute leisurely walk to the bus stop, plus some time to wait outside there, all out in the brisk morning weather.  At least it was already sunny, so there was no possibility for  rainy weather for any of the travel today.

It seemed like time was passing quickly while we were trying to get ready, but once we were ready, we still had about 15 minutes before we needed to leave and carry the suitcases down the three flights of stairs.  Now time seemed to stand still.  We did not want to leave too early, our bus tickets were only good for the 7:30 AM bus, or any bus within an hour after that.  We could not ride the earlier bus, our tickets would not be valid.

Finally, we thought it was close enough to our scheduled time to leave the apartment, so we made our final checks for any left items, and headed down the stairs with all of our luggage and backpacks.  It was not easy, the stairs are in a spiral configuration, so the inside portion of the steps is really narrow, so we had to go slow and be careful.

Once outside, it was refreshing to be in the cooler air.  With all of the additional layers of clothes on, we were already a little warm from the exertion of carrying the luggage down the stairs.  We knew it was just a little over 5 minutes to walk to the bus stop at a normal pace, without suitcases, so we took our time.  We actually stopped at a corner about two blocks away, waiting on the earlier No. 22 bus to pass before we actually went to the bus stop.  The No. 22 bus we needed runs about every 15 minutes, and the 7:15 AM bus had not yet come through.  Once it passed, we finished the walk to the bus stop and waited for our 7:30 AM bus to arrive.

Our bus arrived on time, and it was not too crowded.  It was scheduled to be a 16 minute ride to the train station, but the traffic was a little heavy this morning and we made a lot of stops to pick up and drop off other passengers.  We were a few minutes late arriving at the train station, but still had about 12 minutes to catch our train.  We were not late, but we did not dally getting out to our platform. A  long train was already at the platform we went up onto for our train, but there was not a lot of information out on the platform about the train itself.  We asked a lady on the platform if this was the train to Frankfurt, which was the final destination for the train we needed to take to Munich.   The lady verified it was our train, so we boarded a second class coach and found two seats in a four seat across configuration with a table in between. 

We had not purchased seat reservations, it was not required, but if someone boarded the train at another stop and had reserved these seats, we would need to move.  There were small plexiglass holders for name cards to be inserted into if the seats were reserved, but there were no reservation cards in any of the card holders in the entire coach.  They were probably not even used anymore, reservations or not.  Some trains have small electronic reservation signs, which are easier to use, they don’t require any manual intervention, but this train was a little older, and had the manual card system.  We were just going to have to see what happened.

The train was not crowded, and left on time at 8:00 AM from Salzburg.  It was only scheduled to make four intermediate stops before we reached the Munich Ost (East) Train station at 9:30 AM.  We were scheduled to make a change there to a local S-Train for the short 20 minute ride from there to the Munich Airport.

The train was just a couple of minutes late arriving at Munich Ost, but we had seen from the DB Bahn App that our scheduled connection on the S-Train to the airport was delayed about 12 minutes for some repairs to a signal switch on the line.  Instead of arriving at the airport at 10:15 AM, our arrival was now scheduled for about 10:35 AM.  We were not that concerned, but that was now reducing our 2-hour window to check in at the airport for our 12:20 PM International flight.

The S-Train arrived on time at Munich Ost, at least on time adjusted for the delay, and we boarded along with a lot of other passengers heading to the airport.  We found seats across from each other, but had to keep our luggage next to us in the aisle.  There was no space for luggage anywhere else.  The train made several unexpected stops, we were having to wait for other trains to pass heading in the opposite direction before we could proceed.  Most likely, this was due to our late departure, we were now impacting the other train’s schedules.  There were announcements being made on our train, but only in German, so we just had to figure they were updates on all the stoppages and delays.  What was supposed to be a 20 minute ride was being extended and we were still a few stops away from the airport, and had no idea how much longer it would take before we actually arrived there.

We finally started to make progress, now only stopping for the normally short amount of time at the next several scheduled stops.  The last stop before the airport was a different story, once again, we were delayed and the clock for our flight departure was ticking.  Finally, we arrived at the airport, and now needed to find our gate to check in. For this entire vacation, with all of the trains and buses we had taken to date, we were never more than a couple of minutes late arriving.  Now, on the last day of our vacation, on the last train, we were running about 25 minutes late to catch a flight home, how ironic.

I had looked at information about the Munich Airport online last night and what I read indicated the train station was in Terminal 2, which was the one we needed for our United flight.  However, when we headed up the escalator from the underground train station into the airport, we were in Terminal 1.  We saw the signs directing us outside to cross a large open area to get to Terminal 2 and our gate for check-in.  Just a little more wasted time on an already late arrival.  Maybe there was another escalator on the train arrival platform going directly up to Terminal 2, but we had not seen one.

Luckily, the airport was not that busy, and we easily found the United Check-in, which was part of the Lufthansa system, one of their partners.  There were not a lot of people checking in ahead of us, maybe they had all gotten here earlier.  A lady met us in the Premier Line, and looked at our passports and verified we had current Covid Tests that were negative, and taken less than three days ago.  At first, she scanned my passport into the machine and then asked if I had re-booked my ticket.  I said no, we had just done the online check-in for both of us while riding on the earlier train, so we were confused.  Then she scanned Stephanie’s Passport and found her reservation and then told us she had added me to that one.  We were not sure what all that meant.  We had booked these reservations under Stephanie to begin with so we could apply for a United Credit Card and get $250 off our ticket price.  Maybe that was the reason she needed to be checked in first this morning.

Once we completed the pre-checks, we headed to the check-in counter, and were behind only one person, so we seemed to be set for a quick check-in  That was not the case.  The man in front of us was from Canada, and had some type of work permit documentation.  He was not on our flight, but another United Flight heading to a different city in the USA.  Since the USA is not allowing people to fly from Europe, other than USA citizens, or persons with special permission, maybe this was the cause of the hang-up.  But really, more delays….

After about 10 minutes, maybe longer, and intervention by about three other supervisors, they finally cleared the man to check-in.  We were next, but only after another 2-3 minutes for the agent to make a phone call.

We finally got checked in and also checked our two suitcases.  We still had to go through security and through immigration, which were both upstairs about two floors.  We had to walk up stairs to get there, the escalator was not operational.  We were beginning to see a pattern here, and were hoping we were about done with any more problems before our flight.

We went through immigration, which was an automated system that scanned your passport and then took your photo for facial recognition.  We still had to go to a desk with a live person, but only for him to stamp our passport with an exit stamp.  OK, so we also had to pull down our masks and he also looked at our photos to verify our identity.  We were not sure what the automated system was really for, but it had all been quick, even with the human intervention, it took no more than 3 minutes for everything.

Then we headed to security, and they scanned our carry-on bags and we went through a body scanner.  My camera bag got flagged for extra inspection, but the lady only looked at the x-ray for about two more minutes, and said we were good to go.  They did not have to physically inspect anything in the camera bag.

We were finally heading to our gate with time to spare, well about 20 minutes before boarding was scheduled to begin.

Munich to Washington, DC

We boarded in Group 2, and found our seats in Premium Plus, the same class of seats we had for the flight over to Zurich.  We were on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which we had never flown on before,  Many, if not all of these 787’s are made at a plant in Charleston, SC.

We settled in and one thing we noticed quickly was the automatically dimming window glass.  There were no shades, the window tinting changes either by crew direction, or manually at our seats, but the manual adjustment apparently only worked after we are in the air.  The dimmable glass really worked well to keep the cabin cooler on a sunny day.

Settling In For The Flight Home

The flight left on time at 12:30 PM, and we had a little over 8 hours of actual flight time before our schedule arrival in Washington, DC at 3:00 PM.

The flight was nice, we only had a few instances of slight turbulence.  We had a lunch about 90 minutes into the flight, and they served us two small bottle of red wine to go with it.  After lunch, we settled down to watch movies on the seat-back entertainment system. 

Lunch On Our Long Flight to Washington DC

The dimmable windows were set for dark, which almost made it seem like it was nighttime outside.  I manually adjusted my widow shading a couple of times just to see how bright and sunny it really was.   

About half way through the flight, we heard a man come through asking if anyone was a doctor.  It was kind of unusual that it was just a fellow passenger making the inquiry, but he proceeded past us and into first class.  There seemed to be some activity in the back of the plane, and then we heard an announcement by the flight attendant, also asking about a doctor.

Nothing really ever happened afterward that we heard about, but when I went to the bathroom, which was back toward the rear of the airplane, I saw several people that seemed to be helping out a passenger, a middle aged man.  Nothing looked urgent.  There was never any other announcements, and the flight never altered course.

About 90 minutes before arriving in Washington, DC, they served us a light lunch of heated sub sandwiches, either all cheese or turkey and cheese.  I had the turkey and cheese which was much better than Stephanie’s all cheese selection.  We had more red wine with our lunch.

We landed on time in Washington and then the fun began.  There was another international flight that had arrived right before us, and by the time we arrived at Customs and Immigration, there was already a long line of people waiting from that flight, and also some people from our flight that had gotten off the plane before us.  It just befuddles us how slow and archaic the US can be when it comes to Immigration.  It took us at least 30 minutes to be processed, there were only about 5 Customs Agents working the desks, not even half of the total of desks available.  There was a separate section open for Visitors, but with the sanctions the US has on international travel, there were only about 30 people, if that many, being processed as visitors.  The rest of the people in the long line were US citizens.  Of course, there were lots of announcements being made on the overhead speakers about the Global Entry system, which is a paid subscription service to get through Immigration faster.  It is not economical for anyone that only travels occasionally, and you have to get “processed” at a large airport even to be able to qualify and join.

We have never spent more than just a few minutes going through immigration in any country in Europe, they have automated systems, and they fully staff their desks.  This was just a little embarrassing and archaic compared to many other countries we have visited.  And what is with the Customs Form that was distributed in the airplane before we landed, the agent never asked us anything other than if we exceeded the $800 dollar limit.  We held up the form, but he did not ask for it.  We thought we would give it to someone else after we claimed our bags for Customs processing, but that never happened either.  And again, what is with customs, no other countries make you claim your bags, then re-check them to go to your final destination, they are just checked through to the final destination to begin with.

We went to the baggage claim to do our Customs pick-up, and Stephanie’s suitcase was already in a group of bags set off to the side.  Mine was no where in sight, and after the 30 minute wait for immigration, certainly it should have been there by now, especially since her bag had already come out.  There were still some suitcases coming out onto the carousel, and after a few minutes, mine came down the chute.  Whew!  We knew that both bags were on the plane from Munich, we had seen a verification on the United App, but still, it was sort of disconcerting that they were so separated.

We walked about 100 feet, and then re-checked our bags, placing them on a beltway.  Then we exited the area.  No one ever asked for or collected our Customs Form, what a waste. 

Then we had to go back through security, and that was a joke.  There were only two lines and it was total chaos.  Our backpacks were scanned, and we filed thorough a metal detector.  We could barely get to the conveyor to retrieve our scanned backpacks, there was hardly any space, and many of the bags were falling of the limited space at the end of the x-ray belt.  Only one person at a time could even get to the scanned items because it was so cramped for space.  It seemed like this security station had been added into a much to small of a space. 

Now that we had everything and had been “processed” like cattle, we headed to the gate for our next flight, which was in another concourse.  It was a long walk to the underground rail system to ride over to concourse A, and then a long walk from the train to the actual concourse, but we made it with time to spare.  We had about an hour until we boarded our next flight, so we just relaxed, doing a little people watching.  We were getting a little tired of wearing masks, we had not taken off our masks at all, other than to eat on the airplane, since we boarded the bus at 7:30 AM this morning in Salzburg.  We calculated we had been continuously wearing a mask for 15 hours already, with about three hours more to go before we arrived in Columbia, and finally get outside the airport where we can go mask free.

Boarding Our Regional Jet to Columbia

We were on a small regional jet for the flight from Washington DC to Columbia, and it seemed like it was the same old plane we had taken from Columbia to here at the beginning of the trip.  The overhead bins were miniscule, and neither of us could get our backpack into them, forcing us to put them under the seat in front of us, making it very cramped for legroom.

The flight left on time, and was actually a little early arriving.  It did not take long to get our bags at baggage claim, and then I called mom to come and pick us up from the airport parking holding area she was waiting.  We had called her from Washington, and she was set to go, monitoring the flight online to see when she needed to leave to come to the airport.  At first, she did not answer her cell phone here.  I called three different times, and finally got through,  She had some issue answering the phone, but we did not press for more information on what had happened.

We loaded up our suitcases, and I drove us home from the airport, first stopping off at Chick-Fil-A for some dinner.

We arrived home and went inside.  Sophie, our cat, was a little tentative with us at first, especially with all of the luggage, but she was soon happy that we were home.

We ate dinner and then showered, glad to be home.  It had been a long travel day, about 20 hours since we had gotten up this morning until we walked in the door at home.

We relaxed with an adult beverage, but by about 9:30 PM, neither of us could keep our eyes open, so we headed to bed.  Overall, it had been about a 22 hour long day of travel.

Glad to be Home, Bon Voyage!