Geneva → Amsterdam: our “quick flight” that turned into a train marathon

If you’ve been following our winter trip story… the Netherlands was supposed to be the calm, final leg.

We booked our chalet until 3 January, but planned to check out on 2 January and fly to Amsterdam from Geneva. My sister kindly drove us to the airport, and we thought we’d squeeze in a little sightseeing first—because Geneva is only about 1.5 hours from Les Gets, and surely we could do “one last scenic stroll” like responsible travelers, right?

Geneve Sightseeing

With only a few hours, we went straight to Lake Geneva: parked the car, started from the lakeside promenade, watched the Jet d’Eau do its dramatic fountain thing, had a picnic, then wandered up toward the Old Town.

Geneve Airport

We even arrived at the airport 2.5 hours early. Plenty of time to kiss and goodbye, check in, drop luggage, breathe, and pretend we’re the kind of people who don’t travel with mild chaos as a hobby.

Everything was smooth… until I tried to drop our luggage at the machine and it refused to cooperate.

I asked the easyJet staff for help—and she casually said our flight to Amsterdam was **cancelled due to bad weather at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. 😱😱😱

A message came in right after with the usual options: refund or rebook. Except… in peak season, low-cost carrier reality hits hard. There were no seats for the next three days, so rebooking wasn’t actually a thing. I could buy a flight with KLM the next day, but it would be evening—and if snow was the reason, there was a very real chance tomorrow would get cancelled too.

And we couldn’t gamble on that. Fabio had to be back in Enschede by Sunday for an exam on Monday. Exams do not care about snowfall aesthetics.

So: trains. Always trains.

I briefly considered going back to Les Gets, drive back with my sister and her family to her place, train to Paris and then taking the Euro train to Amsterdam… until I saw it was first class only for €1000. I cried internally (and maybe externally). Also, it still didn’t guarantee we’d arrive in time.

Then I checked routes to Enschede via Germany and—miracle of miracles—there was a workable option from Geneva Airport.

Long? Yes.

Early? Extremely.

But it got us there the same day.

We’d start at 5:30am, with three changes, and arrive in Enschede at 16:27. I booked it immediately, grabbed a night at ibis Genève Aéroport, and burned my Accor points so the room was basically free (small win, big mood boost).

Airport hotel, the reliable kind

ibis Genève Aéroport is not fancy—and that’s exactly the point. Same setup in every country: compact room, comfortable bed, reliable shower, and the real hero feature: a shuttle to/from the airport.

The train marathon

We woke up at 4am, got dressed in the dark like we were preparing for battle, and took the first shuttle at 5am. Geneva Airport railway station is inside the airport building and easy to find—thankfully, because nobody needs a scavenger hunt before sunrise.

Geneva Airport → Bern → Basel → Münster → Enschede

The longest leg was Basel → Münster: 6 hours on an Deutsche Bahn ICE train—comfortable seats, proper space, and a restaurant car where we could buy lunch (thank you, train gods).

Somewhere along the way, we started seeing snow on the tracks. Two weeks ago we were on a similar route to Bern and there was zero snow. Now it was clear this wasn’t just a Netherlands problem—it was snowing across parts of Switzerland and Germany too.

Unsurprisingly, delays followed. We arrived in Enschede later than planned.

I did consider breaking the journey and staying overnight in Münster (I love that city), but our Amsterdam hotel was non-cancellable and I’d already sacrificed one night. When we finally got to Enschede, I asked Fabio if he wanted to go straight home while we continued on to Amsterdam.

He said he wanted one last buffet breakfast with us the next morning.

So off we went—together 🤣

Finally: Amsterdam (at 8pm, naturally)

We rolled into Amsterdam Centraal around 8pm, found the bus… and realized it was only one stop and we could’ve just walked 🤣

Our hotel, Mövenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre, is beautifully located by the port—and we got upgraded, which felt like the universe saying: “Sorry about today. Here’s a view.”

I still wasn’t sure if we’d make it home on time with Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the condition it was in… but at least we were safe in Amsterdam, and Fabio could get back to Enschede the next day. ☺️

And just when we thought the worst of the snow drama was behind us… well… let’s just say the Netherlands was not done with us yet.