Made it to Switzerland!

Today was a travel day. I woke up at 3:15AM in London, dropped the rental car off and got to the airport about 4:00AM.  Did the typical security and baggage check and was ready for the 6:00AM departure.  The flight from London to Zurich was an uneventful 1.5 hour flight.   From Zurich to Thun (our starting and ending place of the tour) is about 1.5 hour train ride.  It all went well!

While I was waiting to board the train, a guy was standing beside me for a little while and then asked where I was going, I replied "Thun".  He said he was going there as well.  It ended up being one of the people on the tour; his name is Joe.  His shirt was from the Barber Motorcycle Museum in Alabama and my motorcycle shirt was from Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, so that was what helped create the connection. The train was very full and we had difficulty find a place to store our luggage on the train.  It was nice to have 2 of us working together.  One could look for a seat while the other one guarded the luggage.

One thing on the train that surprised Joe and I was the drinking going on.  I am not sure where the group who sat across from us was going but they were well prepared and had their stock of liquor.  They had coolers with beer, wine, and liquor that was being shared among the group.   They also had some snacks they were eating.  I don't think this was their first trip together!

After arriving in Thun, we walked about 20 minutes from the train station to the Krone Hotel which is where we spend the first 2 nights.  When we arrived at the hotel, our rooms were not ready yet so Joe and I left our luggage at the hotel and wandered around town in the nearby shopping area and along the river that is right by our hotel.  We quickly learned how expensive things are in Switzerland.  A small sandwich and a Coke was almost $10.00; the bottle of Coke was almost $4.00.  I was really thirsty because it is unseasonably warm here (~ 90 degrees F) and I needed something.  Tonight, for supper I had sausage and a baked potato - the price was around $20.  Below are a couple of pictures of a small dam on the river just up the street from our hotel.

This afternoon, we picked up our motorcycles as well.  We were allowed to only drive the short 2.2 km back from the bike shop to the hotel tonight as our rental doesn't officially start until tomorrow.  Here is the bike I will be riding for the next 11 days.  It is a BMW 1200 RT.  It only had 11 km on it when I left the shop.  I guess I get to break it in!

Tomorrow we meet for breakfast at 7:30AM and plan to be on the road by 9:00AM.  We are doing 3 small loops on different types of roads tomorrow so everyone can get familiar with their bikes and see how the group rides together.  I think everyone is very excited to get started.  Let the FUN begin.