Tuesday, January 28 – Vaduz

It’s a rather rainy day, so it seems like a perfect time for rest, travel planning, catching up on loose ends, and work on the journal. I pretty much saw all of Vaduz yesterday, but I did head out for a while today and visited the Postage Stamp Museum. That was pretty interesting! I also went to the grocery store to pick up some food. I’ve still only had the one sit-down meal so far on the trip, which seems kind of sad, I know. I’ve just got to the point where I find it rather boring to have a meal at a restaurant by myself. (Is that another old-age thing? Probably not, I’m just weird!)

I promised you the story about my 1st class train travel. Well, by last Friday I had (finally!) figured out the final steps of the trip. I looked at online train schedules and came up with the routes and times I wanted for the three remaining journeys. So I went to the Luxembourg train station to purchase the tickets. I ended up working with a great agent and she suggested that I consider buying a Eurail Pass. Of course! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself! Must be that elderly brain function coming into play again! She went ahead and crunched the numbers, comparing individual purchase versus rail pass, and it wasn’t even close. And this took a fair amount of work on her part, because there’s more to booking the travel than just buying the pass. For many trains a reservation is required; in that case there is a fee on top of the cost of the pass. And as a bonus, it turned out the cost of a 1st class pass wasn’t much greater than that of a 2nd class one. So, there’s the story! And as you’ll see in my later posts, I have some long rides coming up, so I’m happy I went with the upgrade.

I should mention that the pass I bought allowed for four days of travel over a 30 day period. But wait, why am I buying a four day pass when I only have three days of train travel left? Well, that wasn’t an option over the time period I wanted. So you’re probably thinking: “You idiot, if you had thought of the pass earlier you could have used it on the trip from London to Luxembourg!”. I actually asked the agent about that, and she said it was unlikely I could have used the pass for that trip because there are very few Eurail reservations available on the Eurostar trains. She was probably just trying to make me feel better! (FYI, the cost of the 1st Class Eurail Pass was €295.)

A final note about my train tickets: I was able to book all the required reservations, except for one: the journey from Milan to Monte Carlo. The agent said that she was unable to access the system of the train company to make the reservation, and that I should check back with an agent on Sunday when I depart for Liechtenstein. This one reservation will turn into an interesting adventure. More details to follow in tomorrow’s journal entry…

Loose ends…

I should mention that Vaduz was very clean. Unlike a lot other European cities I’ve visited, there was no graffitti to be seen.

Sidenote regarding passport stamps: I’ve only had my passport stamped once on this trip – when I departed St Pancras station on my way to Brussels. At Heathrow they now have something called eGate, which is an electronic entry system via a passport scan. I never met with an immigration agent. It went very fast! After entering Belgium, and for the rest of my journey, I’ve been travelling in the Schengen Area, which comprises 26 European countries that have eliminated all passport and other types of control at their mutual borders. The merchants in Vaduz have tried to monetize this situation, by charging tourists $3 to place a Liechtenstein stamp in their passport. Not!

Wednesday, January 29 – transit from Liechtenstein to Monaco

I’ll lead off by telling you what happened when I checked back at the Luxembourg train station on Sunday regarding my Milan to Monte Carlo reservation. The agent I met with this time stated that the problem was not with the system, rather it was a case where she could not make the reservation, I would have to do so myself online. She gave me the web address of the Italian train company for reference. As luck would have it, my train from Luxembourg City to Mukhouse had wifi. So I went to the website, but was only able to find information on trains running between Milan and Venice. (damn Italians!)

But I did have a little over an hour of connecting time in Mulhouse, so I met with a ticket agent at that station. She told me my best option was to make the reservation during my connection in Milan. That wasn’t good for two reasons though: a) I only had 20 minutes in Milan, and b) I didn’t want to wait to the last minute, in case no seats were available. We finally got to the point where she could make a reservation for me on the train that goes from Milan to Monte Carlo, but only as far as Ventimiglia (located on the Italy-French border). From there I would have to get off the train (even though the next stop after Ventimiglia is Monte Carlo!), and take a separate train to Monte Carlo, which does not require a reservation. Crazy, right! But whatever, let’s book it. This isn’t the end of the story though. More to come when we get there…

Today is a long day of travel. I reverse my steps from Vaduz to Sargans to Zurich (bus/train), and the rest of the day goes like this:

• Zurich to Milan: 3h 40m, 20 minute connecting time
• Milan to Ventimiglia: 3h 44m, 32 minute connecting time
• Ventimiglia to Monte Carlo: 30m

It was a long day, but I find train travel relaxing. I enjoy just watching the scenery go by. The route through Switzerland was particularly beautiful, with lakes and mountains. I tried taking some pictures, but they were worthless (blurry, reflections, light pole in the middle of the shot, etc).

The journey was very smooth and relaxing until I arrived in Ventimiglia (we were 10 minutes late arriving in Milan (damn Italians!), but I still had 10 minutes to make my connection).

So, upon arrival in Ventimiglia I exited the train and headed to the station to check on the track location for my final segment. Well, I look at the departures board, and notice that my train has been cancelled (Cancellato!)! Wait, what!?! And all future trains to Monte Carlo have also been cancelled. (damn Italians!) It’s 7pm, and I’m in a kind of in panic mode trying to figure out what to do next. I quickly remember that the train I was just on is also going to Monte Carlo. So, I head back to that track with little hope that it would still be there, but thankfully it still is! Wow! Thank you! It turns out they have a long stop time in Ventimiglia because it’s at the border and they do a crew change. Again, thank you! I’m back on the train, in my original seat, ready to head to Monte Carlo. Then the (new) conductor (French) comes by to check my ticket. Oh oh. Well, I explain the situation, show him my ticket from Milan to Ventimiglia, along with the Eurail pass, and he lets me carry on the rest of the way (love the French!). And it turns out it’s only a 10 minute ride to Monte Carlo. I’m not sure what I would have done if the train had already departed; probably would have ended up in a taxi. Not sure how expensive that would have been?

Getting from the train station to my hotel was a little bit of a struggle as well. On a map, they are very close. The issue though is the third dimension. Monte Carlo is very hilly, with winding roads. The hotel actually sent me directions, but they were a little unclear, and involved an exit I couldn’t find and a of couple elevators, of which I could only find one! I eventually made it part of the way up the hill, but then had to rely on Google Maps to get me the rest of the way.

Travel Tip: Did you know you can use Google Maps without a data signal (cellular, internet, wifi)? The GPS in your phone will still track you without a signal. The key is downloading the map data while you have a signal (preferable a low cost signal like hotel wifi!). The caveat is that Google Maps will only allow downloads of maps for a limited area. So in my case tonight, I briefly used international roaming to get a cellular signal, download the map of the area around me, and then went back to airplane mode to track my route to hotel.