Sittin on top of the world with our legs hangin free

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Church bells ring for 5 minutes straight at 7AM in Switzerland, apparently...hahah. We got up pretty early and had a great breakfast at the place where we are staying. It is a really cool old house and the woman who runs it, Evelyn, has been very helpful. The breakfast was good. Swiss cheese is better in Switzerland, I think; I hate it at home. We took a cable car up to Mt. Pilatus in the morning. You have to change cars near the top because it is so steep it takes a special one. At the station where you switch there are some fun adventure activities. We did a "summer bobsled run" made out of metal. You run it with a plastic sled. It was pretty cool.

The top of the mountain is unreal. It is 7000 feet high. We were WAY above the clouds (unfortunately there were a lot of them and they blocked some of the view). There are probably about 200 stairs to the very top and I was about to pass out from the lack of oxygen. Everyone walking up was hurting from the thin air, I think.
There is a restuarant and a hotel at the top and we got some lunch since we were up there for 4 hours or so. It is amazing how you can just climb all over the rocks. We found a great place on the top of one outcrop and just hung out there for an hour or more. If we had made a wrong step we would have tumbled off the edge never to be seen again (sorry Mom). There are no rails or anything. I got a pretty sweet sunburn, too.

We poked around town a little in the late afternoon. The historic area around Lake Luzern is really nice but it is EXPENSIVE!! We spent an hour looking for a place to get a descent dinner but the only things we could find were 30-45 Franks, which is amost exactly the same as dollars. We finally found a hole in the wall with huge bowls of spaghetti for 14 Franks. Tomorrow we have decided that we will definitely be making a McDonald's trip on the way out of town.

Tomorrow we are going to take a boat ride (hopefully can post some pics like leo, taking flippy floppies just in case) around Lake Luzern in the morning and getting to Milan at about 8PM.

I'm not sure what the internet situation will be from now on but hopefully I can put something up before too long.

I put up some pictures from one of yesterday's castles, too.

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Photos

Neuschwanstein Castle
Inside the courtyard

Luzern
Luzern on the way up the mountain

Cable car
Above the fog, getting into the clouds

Steep
The last section is really steep

7000 Ft.
Leaning to the left a little because to the right is 3000 feet or so of free fall, I think

RRRRIIIIICCCCOOOLLLLAAA!
There were 2 of them and they actually played them. Very cool

Awesome
Walking up the steps were I couldn't breathe

Chapel bridge over Lake Luzern
built in the 1300's. Oldest wooden bridge in Europe

Our day
chapel bridge and water tower (the most photographed thing in Switzerland) and Pilatus to the left of the water tower

Comments

[Mom]

pics
Your pictures are great! We're enjoying. Don't forget to take pictures of the places you're staying. Your hosts, too. Hope internet access continues to be fairly easy. But we'll see!

[Meredith]

Your pictures are amazing! I just got your postcards today too! So glad you are having fun.