Today we travel from Lucerne to Grindelwald. But first, we had to get ready and try to overcome the Swiss Covid Certificate Issue with the Glacier Express train that we found out about yesterday.
I was awake at about 6:10 AM, knowing we would have a difficult morning. I just could not sleep in any longer. I made some coffee and tried to work on the blog post for yesterday while Stephanie slept in until about 7:00 AM.
We had most of our packing done last night, so we only needed to add our last few items after we showered and dressed. We wanted to be ready at about 7:45 AM to leave and head over to the Covid Testing location for our 8:00 AM appointment. It was literally about a 3 minute walk from the apartment, and we arrived a few minutes before 8:00 AM. There were a couple of other people there and a couple of others arrived while we were waiting for the test facility to open.
Once they were open and set up, we all had to scan a QCR code on our cell phones that went to a website to electronically fill out information for the test. It verified your email and we also entered our passport numbers for identity verification and cell numbers for texting.
Once we were through with that, we could head inside for the test. It ended up being just a standard rapid test, and cost us CHF 50.00 each. We were not thinking this was really what we needed for the long term, but they insisted we would get a certificate after the test.
They said it would be about 30 minutes before we received an email with the results, so we headed back to the apartment to finish packing and wait on the test results. We wanted to make sure everything was correct before we checked out of the apartment. We had until 11:00 AM to check out.
About 30 minutes later, we got the results notification via email, NEAGTIVE. That was good, but it also made us realize this was just a standard rapid test, nothing more. Our newly received certificate in the online Swiss Covid Certificate app had a duration time counting down on it, the resulting certificate was only good for 48 hours, and then it expired. This further verified the test was only a standard rapid test. We initially though this was an antibody test that would either verify we had antibodies from a vaccine or having had Covid, we had confused antigen with antibody. Nothing had said “rapid test” when we initially signed up.
This was not what we were expecting, but it sort of made sense. We tried to call a Covid information number for the Lucerne Canton, a canton is similar to a county in the US. We were calling to see if there was something else we could do more permanently for a Covid Certificate. The message on the phone was of course, not in English, so we were not sure what it was telling us. We headed over to the hotel desk across the street to see if they could listen to the message and tell us what it was saying. The lady at reception was a little busy, people were checking out, and to add insult to injury, the street between the apartment and the hotel was now the finish line for a running race that was being held in Lucerne today. There were barricades that blocked us from crossing the street, but we had ducked under some of the tape that was between steel barricades and had crossed the street anyway. The race had not started yet, so there were no runners.
The lady at the hotel reception said the message was just saying they were busy and to hold for the next available person. We asked her if she knew about any other options to check into more permanent Covid Certificates and she suggested the medical center inside the train station, maybe they could help us with a solution.
We headed back to the apartment and packed up our remaining items and left to go and check out. I went back to the hotel front desk, of course having to go around the barricades again, and checked out while Stephanie waited with our luggage next to the apartment since that was the direction we needed to go to walk to the train station.
With check-out complete, we walked down one more flight of stairs with our luggage and crossed the small pedestrian bridge over the river. The running race start line was on that side of the river, so we had to navigate around that to get to the train station.
Once inside the station, we located the medical center. There was a fairly long line of people waiting to get tested, and a separate smaller line designated for people who actually had Covid symptoms. The people with symptoms got through their entry door fairly quickly! However, the line for testing without symptoms was not moving at all after 10 minutes. I could see this was not going to be a good solution, so we just decided to get on the next train to Grindelwald, our next destination. It was leaving in less than 10 minutes, so we purchased tickets through the SBB phone app, which was really quick and easy, and headed to our platform.
We arrived at the platform and boarded our train. It was really crowded compared to any train we had taken so far. We struggled to find a place for our luggage near the group of seats we found, which were already partially occupied. There was not going to be any social distancing on this train ride, at least not until some people got off along the way.
We sat across from each other, but Stephanie had to also straddle her suitcase, there was no where to put it between the seats, those spaces were full, and the only open one was blocked by a fire extinguisher. Luckily, I was able to get mine stored.
The train ride from Lucerne to Interlaken Ost, the station where we needed to make a connection to Grindelwald, was about 2 hours in duration. About 45 minutes from the end of the trip, a lot of people got off at a stop high up in the mountains. Most people on the train appeared to be going on hiking adventures based on their gear and clothing, and this must have been the popular train stop to start from. We were finally able to get seats in a four person section to ourselves since there were now a lot less people onboard the train.
From that point we descended into the valley, stopping at another intermediate stop on the way to Interlaken Ost. We were now travelling along side the lakes that the city of Interlaken is between. We stopped at another station, and then the train reversed direction when leaving that station to head to the Interlaken Ost. That entire remining portion of the journey was alongside of the lakes, which were beautiful. The entire trip had been very scenic, and we certainly would have enjoyed it more under different circumstances, mainly if it had been less crowded.
Once we arrived at the Interlaken Ost Station, we made our connection to the train to Grindelwald, about 25 minutes further away. This train was much less crowded, so we were certainly more relaxed. While we were riding on this train, I was in contact via WhatsApp with the person managing the apartment we were staying at, and I received some photos and directions to help us find the apartment, which was just a short walk from the train station. There was a mailbox with a key box inside once we reached the entry lobby to the apartment complex.
The apartment was one flight up and we finally arrived, and could relax. The apartment was nice and has a fantastic view of the mountains from our windows and small balcony. We settled in and headed to the Coop grocery, just a couple minutes walk away. We picked up some supplies and also some items to make sandwiches for lunch. It was already after 1:00 PM, so we did not want to waste too much time trying to find somewhere to eat lunch, the sandwiches would just be quicker.
Riding Up In The 25 Person Gondola Cars
After lunch, we headed back to the train station to take the train one stop to the Grindelwald Terminal, which is the starting point for the Eiger Express gondola up the mountain. From the station where the gondola ends, there are various cog railways, one of which goes to the Jungfraujoch, one of the highest observation decks in Europe, and the main attraction to visit here.
We had already purchased three day passes to ride on all of the gondolas and cog railways here, there are several that go from the gondola station down into various towns, and those towns have other gondolas to ride to various parts of the mountains. We are planning to go to the Jungfraujoch tomorrow, one of the most popular sights in the area. The weather tomorrow is supposed to be very sunny.
Cog Rail Train
The gondola ride was nice, the cars could hold up to twenty five people, but we were just sharing it with a man and his dog. We talked to him for a bit on the ride up. He worked for a company based in Zurich which had gone to “work from home” status after the Covid Pandemic started. He had moved to Grindelwald from Zurich, and now that his job was permanently a work from home classification, he had decided to stay.
Map Of Jungfrau Region – We Are Staying in Grindelwald
We walked around the station where the gondola ended and saw that there were many hiking trails to take from there. We took some photos with the tripod setup and then headed over to take a short cog railway train down to the Kleine Scheidegg Station to connect to the cog train that goes directly back to Grindelwald.
Enjoying Beers And Great Weather
There were nice outside tables at the station, and the weather was perfect, so we decided to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a beer. The cog train we had planned to take back to Grindelwald leaves every 30 minutes, so we were not in any rush.
We actually stayed for two beers, and by the time we were ready to go, most everyone else had already left the area, and there were hardly any people on the train back into Grindelwald.
Nice Views from Kleine Scheidegg
It was about an hour long train ride to the Grindelwald Station. We made several short stops on the way, mostly picking up hikers.
We were able to move about in our train car with ease to get some photos on the way down through open windows on both sides of our railcar, there were only two other people riding with us.
We arrived at the Grindelwald Station and made the short walk back the apartment to unload our gear. We then headed out to find somewhere to eat dinner in the small town.
Cog Train Back to Grindelwald
We found a nice restaurant that was part of a hotel, the Hotel Spinne, and they had a nice scenic outside eating patio.
We got there just in time, we had asked to see a menu, and by the time we decided to go ahead and eat there, several more people showed up, and took what we thought was the last table.
There was another couple in front of us that got turned away, there were not any more tables available, the rest were reserved. Stephanie asked the receptionist anyway, and fortunately for us, she had reserved the last table for us expecting us to stay after we looked over the menu. We thanked her for looking out for us as we walked to our table, which had fantastic views of the mountainside.
Eating Dinner at the Hotel Spinne Restaurant
We ordered a specialty pizza, and a pasta dish, which were the two main food categories for most of the items on the menu. We also ordered a bottle of wine. It was a great experience, the pizza was very good, but the pasta was just good, it had a spicy salami for the meat, along with spinach and a cream sauce, but the spicy salami was a little overpowering.
Our Pasta & Pizza Dinner
After our great dinner, we walked around the town since we had not yet seen what was beyond the restaurant. We stopped in a couple of stores and then headed back to the apartment. After taking showers, we sat outside on our deck and had a glass of wine to relax, enjoying the view of the Eiger Mountain.
We called it a night about 10:00 PM.