Britain was still in the grip of it’s biggest freeze up for almost 30 years when I left for Switzerland, where the wintry weather would have been regarded as unremarkable. Despite leaving home early, I didn’t have too much time to spare at Heathrow. Three of the four trains I could have caught to Reading were cancelled but the fourth one ran. Fortunately the Railair buses were operating normally. It even looked like BA might get the flight away on time for a while. We were certainly ready to push back at the appointed hour but there was a queue of aircraft waiting to get to the runway and the delay cost about 40 minutes.

I’d hoped to get EC101 at 17:12 from Zürich, giving me enough time to buy my BüGA* at Chur and still get the 18:58 up to Filisur. Despite getting through the airport quickly and catching a train into Zürich straight away, it was 17:15 before I got to HB and the Chur train had gone. There was a relief IC at 17:33 though, four minutes ahead of the regular train and that gave me just enough time to buy the ticket and get to the RhB train as the guard was ready to give the right-away. The process of issuing the BüGA was impressive as the system had stored my details from October and there was no need to re-enter everything. Also impressive was the way the Swiss put on extra trains when it snows while the British cancel them.

As usual, I stayed at the Hotel Grischuna, right at the end of platform 1 at Filisur station and an excellent base for a trip to the RhB.

* BüGA = (Grau)Bündner General Abonnement and is a pass giving unlimited travel on trains and most buses within the Graubünden canton. The monthly version costs CHF190 in second class and CHF270 in first class.