Zurich, Switzerland. Thursday, 26th May 2016.
Woke up at 05:30; brushed and went down to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast. It was basic - breads and rolls with butter and preserves, fruit juice, tea or coffee. Left the hotel and walked to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), pulling my heavy bag. Purchased tickets at the station, descended to platform 34 and managed to catch the 08:14 to Zurich Flughafen (airport).
Reached the airport and after going through the mandatory procedures, settled down at Gate 35, to board the Etihad Airways flight EY-74 to Abu Dhabi. From where we were sitting, we got a clear view of the environs of the Flughafen - green, green; and more green with tiny red roofs clustered together at many places on hills; and the most rewarding one of the snow-clad Alps in the distance !
The aircraft took to the skies 20 minutes behind schedule, at 11:45. Just before take-off, the pilot had announced that we would get a wonderful view of the Alps to our left. Fortunately, our seats(window and middle) were to the left. As the aircraft took off, we were thus prepared for the wonderful view, but not at all for what we actually saw! We were fortunate to have got a spectacular and stunning view of the famous Alps - a complete, seemingly endless range of snow-capped mountains that seemed to tower over this blessed country of Switzerland!
At that moment, I could not help thinking that the Alps were in no way inferior to the Himalayas. I love the Himalayas and mean no disrespect to them(they had given me much pleasure over the decades), but this jaw-dropping view of the Alps and our stay at the fairy-tale town of Interlaken awakened me to the fact that other equally majestic mountains existed on our planet and I kicked myself for not visiting Europe earlier; my repeated visits to the North-Indian hill-stations now seeming silly.
