Switzerland- Mount Pilatus/ Luzern

4-06-2011

One of the best parts of going to Mount Pilatus( the highest point in Central Switzerland) is the travel ( the golden round trip ).

The journey began with an hour's cruise over Lake Lucerne . Sat on the upper deck, the sun was shining and the views were gorgeous throughout . Next bit was on a cogwheel train, the steepest in the world ( 48% gradient a lot of the times) . Again wonderful views especially when you see another train on the rails and realize the steepness. Once at the top, we went on various hiking trails. One side of the mountain was sunny with a few clouds while the other side was shrouded in a cold mist, felt quite odd on walking through a tunnel. On one of the viewing points prayer flags were hanging, wonder how they got there. Also saw a man blowing an Alpine horn, they are massive.

The descent down was a lot of fun. Cable-car down to the next stop, could not see a thing along the way due to the fog. At the stop, Frakmuntegg, we went on Switzerland's longest summer toboggan run ( 1.4 km). It was our first time on one and I loved it! On our first time we were behind a gentleman with a disability ( most likely had a stroke at some point of time) and he got stuck, his wife tried to push him along. It must be so hard to want to do things that you could do before with ease and now are unable to do so. I was behind them and stuck too, felt very bad for him. We got another ride to compensate and whizzed down the second time.

Then a smaller cable car ( panoramic gondola) down to the city. It goes through various stops along the way. On one of them a sweaty, smelly man got into ours. He had just run up the hill, athletic gear on along with a garmin. I could not understand why he joined us, the cable cars are small, the next one was empty and the usher was trying to direct him into the other one. So, bit of a stinky ride at the end!

Roamed around Luzern for the rest of the day. Filled with tourists in the city centre. Visited the dying lion, in memory of the Swiss Mercenaries who died in 1792 during the French revolution. There is a sad air around the monument so it does it's job well.

Then walked on the old city's walls, climbed all the towers to try and find the panoramic view, obviously was the last one. Hopefully this is making me fitter. Visited the various squares, buildings in many of them have a variety of paintings on their walls. Walked on two wooden bridges that cross the river, one was very pretty( chapel bridge) , decorated with flowers. It also had a wonderful ceiling with 122 paintings. The bridge was built in the 12th century but a fire destroyed a large portion of it in the last century, rebuilt with copies of the original paintings.

Loved today.


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