Letter from SwitzerlandPreparation is key as the exodus of journalists begins after last night's match in Basle, writes Emmet Malone

I'M NOT exactly a nervous flier but since the end of the 2002 World Cup, and the problems we Irish hacks encountered while getting out of Tokyo, I always get a knot now when the time comes to hop on a plane out of a city I've been based in for a while during a football tournament.

The source of the problem, as it happens, isn't anything to do with flying itself. Rather it is an excess baggage issue. At a time we were departing Japan, this newspaper was laying people off in droves but halfway around the world Tom Humphries and I had amassed something like 50kgs in extra luggage between us and KLM were looking for around three grand to bring it all home.

Almost a dozen other Irish journalists were in much the same boat but the prospect of the boys covering Brazil having paid out that sort of money in excess baggage fees becoming a topic of conversation back in Dublin as colleagues shuffled out of the then weekly going-away functions clutching redundancy cheques had Tom and I in a particularly cold sweat.

Thankfully, it never quite came to that. Instead, after we had been blocking every check-in desk assigned to the flight for an hour or so while alternating between haggling and grovelling, a call was made to Amsterdam where somebody decided it would be better if there were actually some passengers on board when the plane's turn came to take off.

The Irish journalists were handed boarding cards by check-in staff who were clearly taking the corporate climb-down fairly personally.

Six years on, of course, cashing in on just this sort of situation is how many airlines manage to fund selling tickets for next to nothing. So, having reached the point where I could no longer carry everything I have with me, I took myself off yesterday to Zurich's post office where, after a city-wide search for a big enough box, I mailed a large portion of my possessions to myself back home in Dublin.

It's not the most satisfying way to spend your last morning in a foreign city but, after three weeks, nice as it undoubtedly is, I reckon I've done my time in Zurich. And funny enough, there's a distinct sense about the place that Zurich, like the rest of Switzerland, has done its time with Euro 2008 too.

Certainly, many locals give the ever-so-polite impression now that they'll be happy enough for everyone to move on so they can get on with their lives in peace again.

They'll get their wish soon enough but as we go our separate ways, it's worth noting that the host cities here have done rather well over the past few weeks.

Football may not have the status here that it does in other recent host nations and their team may have bowed out prematurely but, with good if slightly small stadiums, excellent public transport, great communications, and an abundance of multilingual goodwill, this end of the tournament has been pretty well run.

In spite of that, it may have been saved to some extent by the high percentage of foreign nationals resident here combined with the ease of access for travelling supporters from other countries across mainland Europe. That mix of demographics and geography has ensured the cities and their fanzones have remained lively over the past week or so in a way that seems difficult to imagine were Ireland ever to stage even a part of a major championship.

Basle, for instance, seemed overrun on the two occasions Ireland played here in recent years. Some bars ran out of beer and the main squares were a sea of green on the days of the games. But there were just 5,000 here supporting Brian Kerr's side when they lost 2-0 in 2003. Last Saturday 150,000 Dutch descended on the place and the atmosphere can best be described as good natured mayhem

Similarly, the Zurich fanzone, which can hold up to 40,000 people (10,000 more than the city's stadium) has continued to have some pretty busy nights, particularly for the German games, with one fifth of the local population having been born across the nearby border.

One of the whackier examples of the local population's diversity bounced up to me in a bar late the night before Saturday's quarter-final between Russia and Holland. Looking, and sounding, remarkably like the Alexei Sayle of old - tight fitting suit, pork-pie hat and conversation volume turned to 11 - he announced with considerable pride; "I'm half Russian, half Dutch and I have a Swiss passport. I don't know what I am but I'm part of this tournament."

Well, the Dutch are gone, the Swiss end of the competition is behind us and the Russians start this evening's game in Vienna as the bookies' second favourites. The fact is, though, that whoever wins on Sunday evening, there'll be somebody with something to dance about back in Zurich. It's just that sort of place.

"The fact is that whoever wins on Sunday evening, there'll be somebody with something to dance about back in Zurich