Blogs from Lucerne, North-West, Switzerland, Europe - page 24

Today's drive was going to be the longest driving day of the tour. We left Paris for Lucerne, Switzerland. Sitting on the coach for such a long period of time is like hell and we tried to pass the time by listening to our IPOD's, reading a book, but mostly we used the time to catch up on some sleep. Me, Amy, and Patrice tried to kill some time by playing Poker. We all knew we were in Switzerland when the landscape became much more rugged, mountainous, and greener. You could just tell by looking at the cars and the homes that the Swiss enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world. While stopped at a rest stop, one of our tour mates, Mandy from Toronto left her wallet including her passport. ... read more

We're now on our way to Lucerne, Switzerland bright and early in the morning because our tour manager, Amanda wants to beat the traffic. We leave Italy at 7am and things are looking great.. until.. halfway to the Alps we come across this huge traffic jam on the highway. There seems to have been some accident up ahead and within 5mins of stopping, everyone is getting out of their cars, tanning in the middle of the road, peeing on the shoulder in full view. People are having picnics, chatting with strangers in the other cars. Is this what people in Europe do? Finally, we start moving again and we're heading to Stanserhorn mountain. We take the tram and the gondola to the very top and the view is absolutely breathtaking! We climb a little ways up ... read more

After leaving Munich we drove to Switzland. After our creative efforts in Austria (dressing up as wounded soldiers) we had the luxury of sitting at the front of the bus, which was worth it, the views were amazing. Along the way we stopped at the tiny principality of Liechenstein for lunch. After that we drove to Lucerne and stopped for some shopping and browsing. I bought some swiss army knifes (I had to, I was in Switzerland after all!), and just enjoyed strolling along the streets. Everything was so pretty and cute, it was all very ordered and clean and just enjoyable to be at. Then we drove to the Alpine chalet in Lauterbrunnen where we were staying for the night. That night was party night (again!) in the chalets bar The Bomb Shelter, which is ... read more

Luzern closes down on Sundays, so we used that day to visit Mt. Titlis. We took the early train to Engelberg and then the train, cable car, revolving bottom cable car, and chair lift to get to the top of the mountain (about 10,000 ft. high). It was absolutely beautiful up there. We walked through the glacier cave and then went sledding in the snow for a few hours. It’s a strange sensation to leave on a train in 90-degree weather, go up a mountain in a cable car, and emerge to freezing temperatures. We lunch at the restaurant on the mountain with views of the Alps all around, and began the eerie trip down the mountain in our cable cars. We walked around Engelberg for awhile, visited the cheese factory there, and did a bit ... read more

The train ride from Paris to Luzern was rather stressful. Got out of the hotel at the crack of dawn and didn’t have time to go get my pain au chocolat. The elevator down to the train station didn’t work so we drug our bags down a bunch of stairs, made our way to Gare de Lyon, got out Eurail passes validated and made reservations for our train. We did that and then grabbed a bite to eat before boarding the train. Our reservations had us going from Paris to Geneva, then from Geneva to some random city in Switzerland, and then from there to Luzern… all with train changes in about 5 minutes. When we got to Geneva, though, we passed through customs and hopped a train headed to Luzern. It was an intercity train ... read more