Skiing — St Anton, Austria — An afternoon in Zurich

The return trip from Austria to Malaysia — and an interesting afternoon in Zurich

March 2014

Getting from St Anton to Zurich

To get back from St Anton to Zurich, I decided to go by train.

The train was full of skiers returning to Zurich. I had booked a seat, so at least I got my much wanted sit down. And like trains in the UK, there was insufficient luggage space.

The train had free Wi-Fi, but it didn’t work. I guess it was overloaded by the number of passengers on the train.

The train from St Anton to Zurich took around 2 hours and 20 minutes. The train travelled through some stunning countryside from the mountains of St Anton to the shores of Lake Zurich.

One odd thing that happened, which also happened on the 10-minute train journey from Zurich central to Zurich Airport, was that no one asked to see my ticket.

Travelling to and from St Anton by train was far better than doing the usual ski package coach shuffle, as I travelled in relative comfort. I had access to food and drink and arrived at my destination feeling relaxed instead of with knees aching from being cramped in a coach.

Another bonus is that the St Anton train station is located in the centre of town, a few minutes walk from most hotels.

Tourist Information — Zurich train station

For some reason, they didn’t have any city guides in English. They seemed to have every language except English. Is this common in Swiss tourist offices

And it appeared that these handy little books would soon be replaced with an unwieldy, big fold-out map. If this did happen, please leave a comment below.

The kind folks in the travel office tracked down their last ‘English’ version of the guide.

An afternoon in Zurich

I arrived in Zurich at 1:20 pm for a flight at 10:45 pm, so I explored the town.

I took a circular route from the train station through the old part of town and then back up along Bahnhofstrasse. It turned out to be an excellent walk. The station also has some convenient lockers in which you can leave your bags etc.

Zurich is an interesting town with some lovely architecture, and it is well worth exploring.

On the day I was in town, there was a small protest that involved throwing condoms at a church.

I have no idea if this was a regular occurrence. If you know, please leave a comment below.

The streets of the old town had a carnival atmosphere. Bands were playing, people were in fancy dress, and glitter/confetti was being thrown — all very strange. Again, I had no idea what was going on. If you do, please leave a comment.

Band members on the street enjoying lunch.

However, not all of them seemed to be enjoying the afternoon.

Friendly bunch.

Seem to be a lot of confetti thrown around.

The centre of Zurich, particularly the old town, was very nice with lots of small interesting roads and shops to explore.

In the early spring sun, the walk through the town centre was great, and many people were out enjoying a sunny spring day.

One last mystery…. How were they doing that? (see below)

Zurich Airport and their Wi-Fi

Zurich airport is a lovely modern airport with some good shops after security. But their Wi-Fi policy was terrible.

I got a free 60 minutes when I arrived, and then I had to pay — 1 hour CHF 6.90, 4 hours CHF 9.90. They had the system so locked down that Starbucks was not allowed to offer free Wi-Fi. If you went into any of the airport lounges instead of having free Wi-Fi, you were handed a little sticker with a username and password for 30 minutes of access. After the time was up, you had to ask for another username and password. Totally nuts!

The Wi-Fi thing was something I noticed all over Zurich. Apart from the Apple Store on Bahnhofstrasse and the Starbucks across the road from the central train station, there was no free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi in Starbucks was so heavily used that it kept crashing. What was annoying was there appeared to be a lot of free Wi-Fi around, but when I tried to use it, I found that it was ‘pay-as-you-go’ Wi-Fi badged as open. Very annoying…. Why show the Wi-Fi as available if you need an account?

Back to Malaysia

The flight back to Singapore was uneventful — but felt like a very long 13 hours.

Summary of the trip

I was glad I made an effort to go on the trip.

It was a long way to go for a week, and the jet lag was an issue — in the mornings, I felt so tired on the slopes, but I could cope. I didn’t even find the shock of going from the tropics to the cold of St Anton an issue.

A great trip!