Zermatt Switzerland with Noah: Zermatt to Amsterdam by Eurail

Zermatt to Amsterdam | New Year's Day 2018

Using our Eurail Pass, we left Zermatt at 9:13am on the Glacier Express. When we had taken the Glacier Express on the 30th, we arrived after dark so we did not get to see very much at all of the surrounding landscape as our train scaled the mountains. Going down the mountains, we got to see everything - all of the cliffhanger turns, all of the sheer cliff drop-offs, everything. You will love it (unless you are squeamish).

At Visp, we switched from the Glacier Express to the usual train system that connects the rest of Europe. We had to wait a little while for our next train, but that gave us time to review our train schedule. Having not the best of luck with trains (read our story about leaving Rome for Venice), we sought out assistance from the ticket desk clerks. The lady checked our passes, explained everything to me and also reserved us seats on the Babel to Amsterdam train. When you purchase a Eurail Pass, not all trains require reservations. You can just get on a train at any time by showing your Eurail Pass and get off of that train at any stop. I strongly recommend you still reserve seats on every train that will accept reservations. When the three of us got on our Amsterdam train, it was packed and there were not many seats available. It was like an entire college of kids had boarded the train and taken almost every seat. In fact, we did have three college kids in our reserved seats when we boarded the Amsterdam train. Getting them to give up our reserved seats was an ordeal, especially since Momma was nearly hyperventilating after having to run for our train (that's a great story - I'll tell you about that further down this page).

Leaving Visp, we watched as we made our way through the valleys and away from the Alps. The Alps have a very distinct boundary and it is very neat seeing these huge mountains fade into the distance as the train eventually took us through flat, open pastures.

Babel was an interesting change of trains for us. We had a leisurely lunch, walked around the train station, thought about venturing out of the train station for sightseeing but decided against it, and then made our way to the train platform for our Amsterdam train.

It was a little before 3pm at that point. The platform signs read 'Amsterdam', we boarded the train, put away our big luggage bags in the overhead luggage racks and took our reserved seats. I got nervous. The monitor overhead did not list Amsterdam in the list of cities. I pointed this out to Momma and Troy. There was no train attendants for us to ask so we convinced ourselves to get off of the train. By now, it was after 3pm. There were no train staff on the platform to ask questions and there was no way for this train to leave and get another train in for Amsterdam on this platform before the 3:13pm departure so we got back on the same train car and re-did all that we did the first time - put away our big luggage bags in the overhead luggage racks and took our reserved seats.

The train left on time, but we were still not seeing Amsterdam on the monitors. A train attendant finally made her rounds, checked our tickets and we asked about Amsterdam. Turns out, this train went half-way to Amsterdam and then split into two trains. The back half of the train (not the part of the train on which we had boarded) then continued on to Amsterdam. She went on to tell us that we should debark at one of the next several stations and move to the back half of the train. Hmmm.

At the next train station, we thought about switching but the train let people on and off so fast that we did not have time to do anything. This worried us. Momma does not walk very fast and we had a lot of luggage that had to be rolled and carried. Plus, we found out that we had to go back maybe fifteen or more train cars to get to the Amsterdam part. This was going to be an ordeal.

We gathered our bags and started walking to the back of the train, car by car, and there were a lot of cars. When we got as far back as we could go, we waited near the doors and readied ourselves to exit the train, rush through tons of passengers standing and walking on the train station platform and to the first available Amsterdam car. This was not a short walk either. We had to walk past this last car we were on, past the caboose, past the engine car for the Amsterdam train and then onto the first open train car door. With such quick turnaround times at each station, you should have seen us running and dodging and weaving in between people to get to that next car. We did it. We thought Momma was going to fall out on us, but we did it.