This is a difficult trip. The distance is not great, but you have to change trains two times (La Spezia and Pisa), and the experience is exhausting. In Italy they have not yet heard of the ramp; neither have they

After 3 nights in Milan we go down to the coast, to the Cinque Terra. This is a well-known resort area, now fully recovered from the disastrous floods of a few years ago. We are staying in town #2 (if

We take the longest train trip of our vacation, and use our beloved Swiss Travel Passes for the last time. The trip goes through the Alps, not over them – there are lots of tunnels! We change trains at Domodossola, the last stop

On Thursday Sept. 17 we travel from the Swiss Alps to Lake Geneva, from the land of cows and cheese to the land of jazz and night-life. We chose this route because of the Golden Pass panorama train, and upgraded

On day 3 (Monday, Sept. 14) we travel from Lucerne to Lauterbrunnen via the Golden Pass panorama train. To best enjoy the views we have purchased upgrades to first class for this trip. Lauterbrunnen is about 2000 feet up in

As soon as we have body, soul and luggage together, we’ll descend to the basement of the Zurich airport and activate our Swiss Travel Passes. We each invested in an 8-day pass, which entitles us to unlimited travel on trains,

We are scheduled to land at the Zurich Airport at 1:40 pm on September 12 – almost exactly 24 hours by the clock after we leave PDX. Of course we lose 9 hours flying east, so our real flight time