The GoldenPass Express27/Jun
Mark Warrick
“This was a fantastic holiday, with a brilliant tour manager (and some great fellow travellers!), in spite of the indifferent weather which ranged from hot and sunny to cool and stormy (and that was just on one day!). We have not given five stars because the expected stay in "glitzy" Montreux was changed to a stay in perfectly pleasant Lausanne, resulting in more time spent "commuting" to the outings and less time enjoying the "glitz", partially offset by the lovely hotel in Lausanne (although the commute did mean we never got to use the swimming pool as planned). The day trip to Chamonix on the Mont Blanc Express was great, and interesting from a railway perspective as well as a scenery point of view. The ride on the Golden Pass Express itself was superb, with a very pleasant light meal and sparkling wine while watching the mountains and meadows (and vineyards) go by.
We enjoyed the hotel in Interlaken very much, but we did pay extra for a better room and having listened to other guests have decided that in future when an upgrade is offered we shall take it. Our room had a fantastic view over the town to the Jungfrau along the Lutschine valley, and there were plenty of electrical outlets and USB sockets to charge our various devices. The top floor restaurant on this, the tallest building in Interlaken, gave an even more wonderful view of the surrounding scenery, and the hotel was well located for the shops and for Interlaken West station where we arrived and departed with our luggage, while not being too far from Interlaken Ost station for the day trips. We were given free bus passes by the hotel and could use those for local travel if walking was too far.
We thoroughly enjoyed the day trip to Thun, and overall thought that there was an excellent balance between arranged tours and free time (plus the ability to opt out of the arranged tours, of course), and between included meals and the opportunity to eat out on our own. A really great holiday.
Our only criticism, other than the change of city for the first three days, is that after a late morning start for the journey home we had rather a late arrival in London, too late for a train all the way home. We couldn't help thinking it might not have been difficult to leave two hours earlier so that trains out of London would have been more plentiful when we arrived there. Nothing too serious, we coped with it, but that would have been better.
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