Travel Tips

This was our first stop on our European trip in 2001. We had flown from San Jose, CA to Paris and then made the short hop from Paris to Zurich. If you ask me it was Paris where they lost our luggage. No feeling is worse than being the last ones left at the baggage claim when the belt stops turning. Then it's panic time.

It couldn't have been more inconvenient. It was about 5p on a Saturday which is just late enough for all of the shops to be closed. All I had was a pair of pants and a short sleeve shirt on. No jacket. The next day would be Sunday and no shops would be open. We were to take the train to Innsbruck in the morning anyway,

After coming to terms with the fact that we would not start our trip with our luggage we set out for our hotel with just our carry on luggage. It's kind of a strange feeling traveling that light.

The hotel was set up in the hills of Zurich about 20min or so from the Airport. The day was kind of cold, overcast and drizzly. It rained that night.

We checked into our room and immediately called the airline to try to get to the bottom of the luggage situation but to no avail. It would be two more days before we would be reunited with our stuff.

That night we ate in the hotel restaurant. It was quiet, we had pleasant service and the food was good. After dinner we returned to the room for one of the worst nights of sleep.

We tried a few more times to locate our bags that night and even ran up a $100 phone bill calling back to the States with no progress made.

We tossed and turned all night before finally falling asleep only to be startled awake at about midnight by fireworks outside. We were not amused.

The next morning we woke up, showered and got back into our clothes and got ready for our trip to Innsbruck.