Blogs from Lucerne, North-West, Switzerland, Europe - page 17

Day 17 Tuesday 9 October Cloud Soup Wake up 7:30am Breaky 7:45pm Leave 8:30 Breaky was okay. Nice lot of bacon and eggs. We left for our country excursion at 8:30am. There was a lot of cloud cover, so we couldn’t see the mountains. We had 2 Swiss Carriages (more like wagons) waiting for us near the local school. The ride was quaint and peaceful. There was ZERO noise in this sleep town. It was lovely looking at all the little local houses and gardens. We stopped at Han’s house for some beautiful home cooked cakes, drinks and wonderfully freshly squeezed apple juice. The horses all had bells on their reins which sounded beautiful. The cow bells were beautiful music. Delightful. This was a perfect morning out. We arrived back at 11:15am to pick up the ... read more

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Greetings from Switzerland! We arrived here after an amazing train journey from Lake Como. There were huge, huge mountains (some snow capped) and beautiful clear green streams and lakes. It was really picturesque and really enjoyable. So, news since we last updated. After Cinque Terre we went to Milan for 2 nights. Mixed feelings about Milan. The shops of course were impressive and completely over the top (as expected). Unfortunately our budget didn't extend to the 20,000 euro roberto cavalli dress...... Did manage to find some shops that were reasonably priced and bought a few things (of course...). The Duomo was beautiful and the main city area was fairly nice. Nowhere near the beauty and atmosphere of Rome though. There were also some dodgy areas proabably best not mentioned here.... The highlight was definitely seeing the ... read more

Switzerland was a breath of fresh air, quite literally. The difference in the quality of the air was quite noticeable almost as soon as we crossed the border on Monday morning- the scenery from the train (when you're not in a tunnel) is picture postcard, and arriving in Lucerne you immediately felt safe - unfortunately you also felt quite damp as it started to rain almost as soon as we arrived. Lucern is quite a pretty place and so well sign posted you would have to work really hard to get lost there!We were lucky enough to stay in an authentic Vietnamese Swiss Hotel....which meant the smells wafting up out of the kitchen even before breakfast had you thinking about Peking Duck for lunch before you'd even had your muesli.Our plan for Lucern was to venture ... read more

Incredible is the only word I can think of to describe the day we had today. Yesterday, we were given the optional extras talk, and have decided on doing all bar 5 of the extra activities…there are just too many wonderful things to see and do! Today, we made the most of our two chosen extras, starting with a journey up Mount Pilatus. It’s peak is said to look like the face of Pontus Pilot, from biblical times. The early start was worth it today, as we missed all the traffic, and arrived a bit too early for our train ride up the 7000 foot mountain. I wouldn’t exactly call it a train - it is more a carriage, operated on a cog-wheel system. It is unbelievably steep - a 48 percent gradient! It is the ... read more