Our Switzerland train journey continued with a ride through the high country between Brig and Chur.  Once again we climbed up above the snow line.  Rather than traveling on an express train we journeyed on local trains, needing to transfer to other trains a couple of times as we continued our trip.  Our train was full of skiers out for a day on the slopes.  A few stops were high in the mountains right at ski resorts with no town close by.  We lost count of all the cable lifts we saw.  We passed miles of cross-country skiers following a route through a valley and along the train tracks.  As we looked out at the mountains we could see people off in the distance skiing down.  Some train riders had snow sleds for their kids.  Honestly, if I headed out to the slopes, that would be about my speed!

We took lots of photos and I confess that, after a while, they start to look alike.  After all, when you’ve seen one amazing, beautiful, snowy mountain you’ve seen them all, right?

We arrived in Chur (pronounced “Coor”) and found our hotel a short distance from the big train station.  Chur has a very long history, dating back 3500 years before Christ.  This makes it one of the oldest settlements in all of Switzerland.

Our hotel is in a vehicle-free portion of the city, adjacent to the old town section of the city which is filled with narrow cobblestone walkways lined with shops and housing.  We explored the area and took photos but took full advantage of our planned off day in which we had no major sightseeing planned.

One nice thing we have found about the hotels in this part of the world is that most have electric plug adapters available if you ask for them.  Apparently, Switzerland uses a plug that is a bit different than other European countries.  The voltage is the same, just the plug is different.  Because of that, hotels keep adapters available.

In case you don’t know it, our US electric is different than that in most of the world.  Because of that, you can’t use any device with a motor in it, like a hair dryer.  However, almost any electronic device like a cell phone or laptop will charge up just fine if you have the right plug adapter.  To be sure, just look at the charger that plugs into the wall.  On the small print it will have something like: “input 100-240v.”  That means the charger will work fine on US voltage of 110 and European voltage of 220.  All you need is a plug adapter.  Also, our phones and IPad can be charged from the USB ports built into many electric plugins here.

By early afternoon we settled into our hotel room to relax and prepare for tomorrow’s train trip on a major excursion train higher up into the Alps than we have gone yet.