General Info:
Links to All Switzerland Stories.
Getting Here:
Relatively painless. We flew via Air Berlin into Zurich. One question we had
was what to do with our bike bags and how to easily pack for our 7:45am flight
home in three weeks. The airport does have a “Left
Luggage” office where you
can store baggage for extended periods. We just weren’t sure, nor did we want
to get to the airport at 5:00am to pack our bikes and catch the plane. We opted
to book a hotel room near the airport where we could store our bike bags while
we were here. We stayed at the Fly
Away Hotel.
Travel:
From the Fly Away Hotel we caught an Inter City bus from the Kloten station
to the Zurich HB where you catch the train to Chur. We activated our Swiss
Flexi pass – which allows you three free trips, and discounts on the remaining
trips – The Inter City bus has a car where you can take your bike on.
We caught an SBB bus from Chur to Laax. This bus had 5 bike hooks on the back. They leave fairly regularly so travelling in Switzerland with your bikes is relavtively painless. Our main mistake, we brought too many clothes in our backpacks so lugging those around with our bikes was a bit of a hassle.
We used the Android SBB app to plan our bus trips between locations.
We picked up a pay as you go SIM card at Swiss Com. If you get this make sure
they set up your phone to use the card. I coudn’t use the data plan initially
until I went into another Swiss Com store in Chur. We chose Swiss Com since
it is the largest provider in Switzerland and provides most land lines. Calls
to other Swiss Com phones are free, calls to other providers are charged.
Food:
Also of note is on Saturday and Sundays the stores close early or are closed.
As we fly in on a Saturday we bought food for dinner and the next two days
of breakfast so we woudln’t have to worry about it in Laax. This added extra
baggage to our luggage.
Food in Switzerland is expensive. Plan on paying about a third more for meals
then you would in Canada.
When we arrived in Zurich we went across the street from the main arrival
area to the shopping plaza and bought the first nights dinner at Migros. We
also bought
the Swiss Com SIM card at the store in the Airport.
The main Grocery stores in Switzerland are Migros, Coop and Vogle ( in smaller
cities).
Riding:
Highly recommended to buy a good map and do some research before you go riding.
There are a lot of trails in Switzerland. Some are better the others. The best
are the obscure hiking trails.