We woke up in Arles, France and had a nice breakfast in the beautiful courtyard of our hotel. We then walked through town to the bus/train station where we were going to catch the 9am bus to Avignon, to catch our high speed train from Avignon to Lyon - the first leg of our day long trip. However, the 9am bus never showed. Fortunately, we were able to catch the 9:30 train from Arles directly to Lyon, so that worked out okay.
The rest of the day worked like clockwork. We would arrive in a station, and have about 5 minutes to find where the next train was and get there and get on. It was amazing - and a bit stressful during these transitions. We didn’t have enough food with us for the entire day, thinking we would be able to purchase something in one of the many transfer stations - but we never had time. And these local trains only had a snack cart, serving food we didn’t want to bother with. We made it by on a couple of apples and part of a chocolate bar.
The good part of the trip was once we got past Lyon, France, the scenery started to change - getting mountainous as we approached Switzerland - so we were well entertained… although near the end of the day we were getting a bit punchy (travel weary). Despite it being a tiring day - it was fun and memorable.
We finally arrived in Lauterbrunen at 6:30 pm, and fortunately it was a very short walk to our hotel. When we walked up to our room on the 4th floor, we were rewarded with a balcony and a beautiful view of the Lauterbrunnen Valley and a gorgeous waterfall… the best view from any of our hotel rooms so far.
That night for dinner we decided to eat at the hotel’s restaurant, where we met and shared dinner with Laura and Mike from Long Island. She was actually born in Switzerland and they were here visiting relatives. It was a fun dinner, and Joanie enjoyed an amazing salad bar and I had a very delicious and fun cheese fondue. After dinner, we purchased two glasses of Port and took them up to our balcony with our amazing waterfall view and the sound of the river rushing by near our hotel. A beautiful and relaxed way to end our long day of traveling. And that night when we turned out the lights, we left one window open, and the flood-lit waterfall was visible from our bed, lulling us to sleep. Ahhhhhh…
