On Monday, 8 June 2009, in early morning, we left
Paris for
Luzern,
Switzerland.
A Kide is very kind to send us right to
Gare de l'Est, which means the "East station", the train station where our train departed.
We arrived at the station at around 5:50am Paris time, while the train only departed at around 6:20am, so we had some time to take pictures inside the station. The kids were very happy to be able to have their pictures taken in front of two European high-speed trains:
France's
TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) and
German's
ICE (InterCity-Express).
We took the
TGV Lyria train to
Basel, Switzerland, passing through French cities such as
Strasbourg,
Colmar and
Mulhouse. According to my
GPS, the train zoomed up to 300km/h especially on the Paris-Strasbourg leg, although it seemed to be a bit slower once the train passed through Strasbourg to Basel.
At Basel train station,
my wife managed to buy
Luxemburgerli macarons from
Sprungli. One of our favourites, indeed. :) Unfortunately, since we have little time there, we didn't manage to get out of the station to see a bit of Basel since we needed to catch our next train to Luzern.
After validated our
Swiss Passes at the ticket counter in Basel train station, we took another train, this is a local
SBB train, to Luzern, via
Olten. I bought the Swiss Passes prior to our departure to Europe, and with this passes, we are entitled for free rides to all forms of Switzerland's public transportation: from trains, buses, trolleybuses, trams and even boats.
