10 Europe-2003
In July 2003, we did a 20-day Coach Tour of a few countries in West Europe, with Thomas Cook India. The Tour started from Frankfurt, Germany and ended in London, UK. Along the way we went through Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands. The entire tour was to captured by me in a Sony Handycam running into 14 Mini-DV tapes of about 20 Hours recording.
Recently, edited and cut these tapes into 38 short movies - each of 6 to 14 minutes duration. These movies uploaded to YouTube, are linked below with brief narration of the content of each movie. Have retained the original sound recording of Hindi film music (played on the coach monitor) and the noisy comments made by a typical India Tourist Group; this has added Indian Spice to these recordings!
On Day-1 we land at Frankfurt Airport and are met by Tour-Manager Aman and Coach-driver Willie. Our Group comprised 35-40 Indians, mostly from Mumbai but some from other states. We drove on German Autobahn first to Heidelberg Castle, and then to Daimler Benz Museum at Stuttgart. Later we drove down to a cuckoo-clock town on the bank of Lake Titisee, in the southern fringes of the Black Forest of Germany.
Continuing with Day-1, we enter Switzerland and drive to the Rhinefalls at Neuhasen. We did a Motor Boat cruise, going past the Waterfalls. We stayed the night at Hotel Europa, in Interlaken. Next morning, Day-2, we drove to the train station of "Kleine Scheidegg" at Lauterbrunnen; from there our train ride to Jungfraujoch started. This video ends with the 1st part of that train ride. The rest of the train ride in next video.
The train ride to Jungfraujoch continues in this movie, upto Grindelwald. There we change to Funiculars to reach the top at Jungfraujoch, in 2 stages. And finally some elevators to reach the upper levels of Jungfraujoch. At the top awesome snow and glacier views. We visit a deep and long Ice Cave, with a variety of ice statutes on display. And the glass-walled Sphinx observatory.
We visit Interlaken town, sandwiched between lakes of Thun and Brienz. We spend some time strolling around the huge central park grounds of the town surrounded by mountains. And watch paragliders landing there.
Day-3: Today we drive from Interlaken all the way to Mt. Titlis. There we take the 2-stage cable-cars ride to reach the top of the mountain. Awesome snow and glacier views, from the galleries and observation decks at the top.
Still at Mt. Titlis, we go down a level to reach the Ice-Flyer Chair Lift. We take an enjoyable ride on the Ice Flyer that seats 6 people on a bench-like suspended cable-car; going up to a ski-station and a ride back. Awesome views on this ride. Later, we reach the circular snow rink for rides on 'tires' and other types of slide-rides. And finally a walk through the Ice-Grotto of Titlis.