Lucerne

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17 August 2009

The days are still warm, sunny and dry. Even in Lucerne it is 31 degrees and the local pass time seems to revolve around the water with scores of people at ‘beaches’ along the lake swimming and sunbaking and some sensational motor boats and small sail boats.

Our day started early however getting out to catch the first gondolas to Mt Pilatus. These were gondolas of the air, not the water. To get to the top we first took a series of the small 4 person gondolas to rejoin in the 40 person version complete with the hatchway for you to climb out for your fight scene a la James Bond.

The trip takes us straight up from 436 to 2132 metres.

Going up the mountain is amazing, for about two thirds of the trip there is still pasture for the cows intermingled with the summer cottages and barns for milking and a sealed road. The last part of the journey changes dramatically with a stomach turning hop over a high crest to watch the wall of rock approach the gondola. This is the territory of mountain goats and churches (?). How they built a little church up here astounds us and we can only see a steep, twisting walking track so everything must have come up on backs.

The conditions are the best you get and the locals working at the hotel and coffee shop tell us only a few days a year are this good. Even at this altitude we would have been quite comfortable in shorts and tee shirts. The view was breathtaking, as was the climbing up to the lookouts, even the mountain goats up here borrow the stairs put in for the touristos. Unbelievable though was that we could still hear cow bells, they are some serious bells.

The train ride down was fantastic, the steepest cog rail train in the world. Gradients of up to 48%.

The afternoon even got better with a horse and buggy ride through one of the local farming areas with the farmer. We got to ride up front. This place is so beautiful and green it is nearly impossible to take the right photo to show you. The end of the ride finished with lunch put on by the farmer’s wife at the cheese making barn dating back to the early 1600’s.

We took time out for ourselves and had another great dinner overlooking the River Reuss.

This has been a beautiful place and somewhere we definitley will come back to.

Al and Tess

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Photos

Setting out for Mt Pilatus
Lucerne, Switzerland

Destination, Mt Pilatus
Switzerland

The Parish of Mit Pilatus
attended by a congregation of mountain goats

Hold on
Best line so far

Mt Pilatus
Just one of the views

48 percent
Cog railway coming down the mountain

Comments

[tami photinos]

wow!
Hey guys Thanks for the blogs. It brings back such wonderful memories of travelling. I'm getting the bug again. So pleased you're enjoying this wonderful experience. I feel at times that I'm with you. Well in my dreams anyway. Enjoy enjoy enjoy Love Tami xx