1983 - Snow and QE2 14 January 1984 – Home Again

Friday 14 January 1984 – Harare

                                                     

Although we were lights out at 20.30 in Zurich, I was awake at 00.30 and could not get back to sleep. Rab stirred soon after and Matt was awake at 03.00. None of us could get back to sleep so we were up and about at 04.00 breakfasting on the remnants of last night’s supper. (This was the first occasion we had completed a long flight West/East. Over the years we found those flights more difficult to recover from than equally long East/West flights.) We were down for a proper breakfast at 07.00 and thoroughly enjoyed our last true Continental breakfast.

 

Lucerne bridge

We had decided to have one last look at Lucerne and contemplated driving down but in the end decided to catch the train. We made the 08.58 which was unusually empty and had a most pleasant trip down. The countryside was covered in snow again as was Lucerne, which made it even more beautiful than before. We left all our luggage in a locker at the station and just strolled around until lunchtime when we had a final raclette at Zum Raben. A final visit to the bank and then we were off to the Bahnhoff and the Flughaven .

 

Last view of the lake at Lucerne

We were all nodding off on the train and felt very tired indeed. There was no problem checking in and after spending our last few francs on chocolate we went through to the departure lounge. It was snowing quite hard as we got to the airport and we were concerned that there might be some delay at both Zurich and Geneva. There were some, but not too serious and we landed up being an hour late at Athens.

Dinner was served between Geneva and Athens and, as usual, was delicious. Even Rab and Matt were tempted by it. Poor old Matt was very tired and had fallen fast asleep at Zurich airport while waiting to take off. We finally took off from Athens chock full of passengers (so much for the urban myth about no one flying on Friday 13^th!) and after a light cold collation we settled down to try to sleep at about midnight.

We all slept quite well and started stirring at about 05.30 aware of the fact that there were only three toilets so thought we might as well get cracking early. Breakfast was delicious and once again Rab and Matt managed to eat some! Most unusual that!

We touched down on time in Harare at 07.30 where Dad and Lucy met us. A marvellous holiday, but good to be home.