Train Day: Bruges to Luxembourg to Geneva

A Year Ago Today...

March 19, 2009

Itinerary:

Thursday, 3/19 Bruges/Luxembourg/Geneva (Charissa and Harmony)

-4:00 a.m. leave Bruges hostel

-Train: 4:53 a.m., Brugge, (train 504) Arrive 5:55 a.m., Bruxelles Midi, (1 hr. 2 min) connecting train: 6:09 a.m. Bruxelles Midi (train 4606) Arrive 9:01 a.m. Luxembourg, Lux (2 hr. 52 min.) *14 min. transfer

Luxembourg:

-3 hour layover. Walk streets a bit. Breakfast (groceries) on church steps.

Train delayed one hour-change of course to Geneva. depart Luxembourg 12:15 p.m. arrive Basel SNCF 3:30 p.m. depart Basel 4:03 p.m. arrive Biel/Bienne 5:19 p.m. depart Biel/Bienne 5:29 p.m. arrive Geneva 6:45 p.m.

Geneva:

-Check into Hostel (8 min. walk from train).
-Walk along Lake Geneva. View of Calvin's church by night. Dinner on waterfront: (groceries from Bruges and Guarana found in Geneva).

Lodging: City Hostel Geneva, ($32.59 each)

Bruges marked the middle of our trip and also the point of separation for the four of us. Ali and Autumn could not take as much time off of work/school as Harmony and I did, so they had to return to London and fly home while Harmony and I continued on to Switzerland and Italy.

So early Thursday morning, Harmony and I woke Ali and Autumn up for a quick goodbye and then left our slumbering friends to walk through the dark and empty streets of Bruges to the train station. As you can see, this was a really early train! Thankfully we knew we could catch up on sleep while we traveled all day.

We had a brief layover in Luxembourg where we were able to walk around a little and eat some breakfast. I wish I could've seen more but that will have to be on another trip.

The long train ride allowed for some catch up in the journal (yes, we were all pretty faithful in journaling our trip), and some reading time.

We arrived in Geneva Switzerland in the evening and had a quick walk to our youth hostel. From the hostel we found that it was a quick walk down to the Genevan waterfront so we took an evening stroll. The church in the background of this photo was John Calvin's.

We also found guarana in Geneva! It is my favorite Brazilian soda and is hard to find in the states so it made for a special treat as we enjoyed our picnic dinner by the river.

Our hostel had internet so we spent the rest of the evening catching up with friends and family at home and then got a good night's sleep before our day of site-seeing in Geneva.