On Monday, 8 June 2009, in early morning, we left Paris for Luzern, Switzerland. A Kide is very kind to send us right to Gare de l'Est, which means the "East station", the train station where our train departed.
We arrived at the station at around 5:50am Paris time, while the train only departed at around 6:20am, so we had some time to take pictures inside the station. The kids were very happy to be able to have their pictures taken in front of two European high-speed trains: France's TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) and German's ICE (InterCity-Express).
We took the TGV Lyria train to Basel, Switzerland, passing through French cities such as Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse. According to my GPS, the train zoomed up to 300km/h especially on the Paris-Strasbourg leg, although it seemed to be a bit slower once the train passed through Strasbourg to Basel.
At Basel train station, my wife managed to buy Luxemburgerli macarons from Sprungli. One of our favourites, indeed. :) Unfortunately, since we have little time there, we didn't manage to get out of the station to see a bit of Basel since we needed to catch our next train to Luzern.
After validated our Swiss Passes at the ticket counter in Basel train station, we took another train, this is a local SBB train, to Luzern, via Olten. I bought the Swiss Passes prior to our departure to Europe, and with this passes, we are entitled for free rides to all forms of Switzerland's public transportation: from trains, buses, trolleybuses, trams and even boats.
