Day 17 - Rhine Valley to Lucerne

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We were up this morning kind of early; bags to coach was at 9:00am so we got in some breakfast first. We drove for a bit before a quick stop off for a bathroom and snacks stop. Then we were on the road again for about another hour and a half before arriving at the Germany/Switzerland border. Leona and Derek jumped off briefly to pay some German road tax then we drove for about another 10minutes before our 30minute lunch stop; this was when we discovered how bloody expensive Switzerland was. For example, a not overly large plate of lasagne was 17CHF... which equals about $21AUS...I kid you not. Such a joke.
After the shock of our lives we drove for abit longer before arriving at the base of Mt Pilatus. This is the home of the world's steepedst cogwheel. Many people thought engineer Eduard Locher was crazy when he put forward the idea of building a railway up Mt Pilatus in the 19th century. But the 4618m long stretch of railway was opened in 1889 (stean operation until 1937) and its 48% gradient is still the steepest cogwheel railway in the world. This was achieved by the brilliantly innovative construction of two horizontally revolving cogwheels, first presented at the 1889 Paris World Exhibition. It took about 20minutes to get to the top. From there the views were amazing, indescribable. Every now and again the cloud would come across and block it out but for the majority of the time it was stunning. Green hills, blue skies and so, so, so high up. We got a different way down the mountain, this time in a, or two cable cars. Firstly you got in one that held about 30 people then about half way down we got off and got onto a smaller one that held four people.
When we got to the bottom we jumped back on the bus and made our way on the bus to our hotel. We had a little time to have a shower before our included dinner. After that we had a bit more time to finish getting ready before we made our way on the public bus in to the city to a club called Opera.
It was super quiet when we got there and was funny because the contiki group that we hung out with in Mykonos (not our group but the other one that was staying at the same hotel at the time) was actually at the same club. It was nice to see them all again so randomly. The club took a while to kick off but when it did it was good. The drinks were a joke in price (eg a vodka redbull was 14CHF. So everyone stuck to the special drink of the night which was only 5CHF. It was a good night, and was Dereks (oour driver) 30th Birthday so even more of a reason to celebrate. I left the club at about 3:00am with two other girls as my feet were swallon because i was in heels for the first time in ages and also it was dso freakin hot in the club everyone was sweating up a storm.
We caught a cab back to the hotel and had a lovely driver, he spoke english which was even better but was a little too chatty for that time of the morning. We were back at the hotel just after 3:10am and i jumped straight into bed. I'd left Mary there with some of the others, that was enough for me.

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