The Tullmann Travels

Zurich airport sprint to five transfers, ending at cliffside Mürren apartment.

📅 July 6, 2025

Our flight from LAX to Zurich lasted just over 11 hours. I managed a few hours of shallow sleep, drifting in and out between True Grit and random naps. Breakfast arrived about an hour before landing: omelets, potatoes, fruit, yogurt, and a croissant—decent for airplane food. Jonas slept well, Alina and I… not so much.

We landed ahead of schedule around 3:00 p.m. (Switzerland time), which gave us a slim but hopeful window to make our connection. After disembarking, we boarded a tram to the main terminal and passed quickly through customs. The officer even complimented my AI-generated t-shirt—always a great icebreaker.

But we were still anxious. Would our checked luggage arrive in time? Would we miss the train? A lot was riding on those two bags showing up.

Thankfully, our luggage came through quickly. With relief, we headed straight to the train station inside the airport and queued up at the travel agency. We picked up our Swiss Family Card (Jonas travels free!) and used our Swiss Half-Fare Cards to buy train tickets to Mürren—a tiny cliffside village 3 hours away.

From the moment we stepped onto Platform 4, it was go-time. The crowd was thick with travelers heading to Zurich Hauptbahnhof. We found a spot for our luggage and began the multi-leg journey: a carefully timed sequence of five different transports that would take us from Zurich to Bern, then Interlaken, then Lauterbrunnen, a cable car to Grütschalp, and finally the small mountain train into Mürren.

Jonas did great—he was tired but excited, keeping up with us through every transfer. He even caught a nap along the way. We were all running on fumes. The whole trip from Bakersfield to Mürren took over 24 hours.

As we traveled deeper into Switzerland by train, the scenery began to shift. We passed the turquoise waters of Lake Thun, glowing softly in the late afternoon light. The mountains, once distant silhouettes, grew larger—looming, majestic, and shrouded in clouds. Each bend in the tracks revealed more of the dramatic landscape, triggering flashes of memory: our last family trip here, and even further back, the epic alpine hikes of my younger years. The rhythm of the train and the unfolding view brought a quiet sense of anticipation and reverence—it felt like returning to something sacred.

But we made it. Just before 8:00 p.m., we arrived in Mürren and stepped off the final train into crisp alpine air. Our route had gone perfectly—we hadn’t missed the last cable car like we had feared.

From the station, we walked downhill to the edge of town and arrived at Sigrist Haus, where our host Bruno welcomed us warmly. He even stocked the kitchen with groceries for breakfast the next day.

Our apartment—three bedrooms, simple but cozy—was the same one we had stayed in two years ago. It almost felt like coming home. Mürren remains our favorite place we’ve ever stayed in all our travels.

As we unpacked and cleaned up, the sun dipped behind the towering peaks just outside our balcony window. The Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau stood tall and snow-dusted in the fading light—silent and magnificent.

We had made it.

Grateful. Exhausted. Home again.

Jetlag would make for a restless night, but for now, we exhaled.