I'm wanna walk up the side of a mountain!

22nd October 2011 - 6pm

So Lucerne was pretty cool. Cold even! It’s a bigger city than I thought it would be and is surrounded by the beautiful snow covered Swiss Alps. 

On our first day there the weather was pretty miserable, yet we explored the city by foot with our umbrellas. We did the obligatory watch shop which was more like window shopping, and pretending we had the money for a $5000 watch. One of the main “attractions” in town is a three-storey watch shop, with a room dedicated to Rolex only. It was jam packed of Japanese tourists, there was literally no room to move. 

LUCERNE

We also braved the rain to walk the Chapel Bridge which crosses the main river in town, it’s a pretty amazing foot bridge with a souvenir shop half way across. It was a nice spot to take in the surrounding alpine views. 

CHAPEL BRIDGE

Another highlight in Lucerne is the Lion Monument. It symbolises… something to do with the Swiss and the French. Basically the Lion has been stabbed in the back and is… well, he’s dying. He looked so sad. A very impressive sculpture though.

LION MONUMENT

In between those few things we just meandered through the streets coffeeing it up for sustenance! All in all a nice first day in the town.

CHECK OUT THIS GUY!

Day two in Lucerne. Washing day. Again? Well not really. We walked what felt like the entire city looking for a Laundromat. The language barrier made it very difficult to follow anyone’s instructions. On a side note, the Swiss speak a combination of German, French and Italian and so you can imagine as a fourth language how good their English is! It has been the hardest place to get by so far with the language, but still doable. We had to ask about 8 different people to point us in the right direction and they’d be all like “Uh to take clothes yes?” In the end we found a place where they charge 21CHF (Swiss Franks – roughly equal to AUD) so I chucked a hissy fit. No way! Don’t ask what we’ve been doing since then but it hasn’t included washing clothes!

The weather was quite nice by the afternoon and we had a spectacular view of all of the surrounding mountains. It really is breathtaking! 

THE VIEW FROM OUR ROOM!

Lucerne is quite expensive; it really hurts forking out $7.00 for a coffee at Starbucks. It is still not a patch on the cost of Copenhagen but when you try and get away with a cheap dinner and end up with Nutella wrapped in pastry when you thought you were getting a sausage roll and it makes things a little less enjoyable. I feel pretty obliged to add in here that I was pretty ****ing over being away from home on that day. I hated my backpack, I hated our hotel room (the bathroom and the bedroom were one room, when I stepped out of bed in the morning I was on the bathmat!) and I strongly disliked stupid Lucerne for ripping us off! All I wanted to do was go home. But that has gone away now! 

The next day we decided to take a day trip up to Mount Pilatus. The majority of the cost was covered by our Eurail Passes, however it was still something like $50 each to get up there and back. Firstly a train gets you to the bottom of the mountain, and from here you catch a cog train up to the top. It is the steepest cog train in the world, the incline would have been about 45° and the trip takes about 40 minutes. On our way up, we passed through the clouds and were greeted with pine trees covered in snow! We were so incredibly lucky that it had snowed a couple of days prior (the day we arrived it was snowing up there) and that the weather had cleared up enough for us to go up there any enjoy the fresh fluffy snow. I’ve seen snow a couple of times before in Australia but I don’t remember it being so soft!

THE COG TRAIN

PAST THE CLOUDS... AMAZING!!

THE TRACKS

Obviously, it was cold! Matt had to buy gloves, that’s how cold it was. Mr I-Don’t-Get-Cold had to buy gloves? It didn’t take long to warm up though and we went on a few little walks to check out the views. The steps are incredibly dangerous. They are covered in snow and after a few dozen people have walked over it, it’s just ice. The handrails are wooden and quite loose. It was slow going, one step at a time, sideways, hanging on for dear life! The views up there are truly amazing. I think in the end we were so lucky that it was cloudy as we spent the day exploring the snow covered peaks above cloud level. It was so isolated we could have been on another planet! 

THE GUY WHO SUGGESTED A PICNIC AREA PROBABLY GOT FIRED...

CHILLAXIN'

SIDEWAYS SLIPPERY STEP SHUFFLE!

US LOOKING RATHER GOOD AT A LOOKOUT!

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

SOME MORE "STANDING IN FRONT OF SNOW!"

PLAYING!

HERE'S ANOTHER NICE VIEW AND SOME SNOW!

We had a really beautiful lunch up there and after that we went on another walk to another peak. It was lovely but hard work and I let Matt know the whole way! I just wanted to sit on the seat and enjoy the view from half way up, it was still so nice!! He’s seriously like a little boot camp bitch on these walks, cracking his whip so I get to the top. The paths varied between very easy footpaths, ice covered stairs and loose rocks. Again the handrails were so loose, and I dare say useless if you were really relying on them. We made it to the top, the highest peak up there and we were rewarded with stunning 360° views. It was so white and bright up there, you couldn’t take your sunnies off!

THAT'S ME! I LOVE THIS PHOTO!

ICE SABER!

ANOTHER INFORMATIVE CAPTION

WE REACHED THE TOP! YAY!

After our walk we headed off to catch the cable car home. Then I saw the cable car and flipped out! Waaay waay to high for me. I would NOT be talked into it as much as Matt tried. After much debate, I convinced Matt to take the cable car on his own so I could take the cog train back down. It seems whenever Matt is on his own he makes friends. Normally, it’s only a matter of minutes when I duck off to the ladies... I come back and he’s found someone to talk to. This time it was about an hour on the way home and yes he made friends again with the people in the same car while I trained it home all alone! Nah, it was fine. Can you believe that we’ve been together non-stop, 24/7 for something like 8 weeks, yet when we meet up at the end of our trips home… we missed each other??? Hahaha GAY!

ER... NO THANKS!

MATT'S CABLE CAR RIDE HOME

2ND LEG OF CABLE CAR JOURNEY. I MISSED OUT ON 2 TYPES OF CABLE CAR. NAWWW...

Today we trained it to Interlaken. The 2 hour trip was amazing, it was like a postcard the entire way! The water is so clear and the most amazing colour I’ve ever seen. Since arriving a few hours ago, we’ve been for a walk through the town and across the river, and had lunch at a Hooters. Classy. It was just a case of eat big at lunch so we can skip dinner! The poor waitresses are dressed in short shorts which were more like undies really. Across the road from Hooters is a park where all the skydivers land. Interlaken is a huge adrenalin sports town. I’m being the cool girlfriend telling Matt he can go skydiving if he wants but shit… I hope he doesn’t. We have checked into our accommodation, a guesthouse with a (cue sunshine and sound effects) GUEST LAUNDRY!!! 

THE VIEW FROM THE TRAIN

SAW THIS GUY WHILE ON TRAIN... TOUGH GIG, TALKING YOURSELF FOR A WALK!

Tomorrow we are going to head up one of the mountains and we’re told the weather for the next few days is going to be beautiful! By the way, I don’t want to brag (pfft, yes I do) but our room overlooks cute little houses with skydivers cruising over the mountains in the background. Less than 2 weeks to go until we’re home. Looking forward to seeing everyone!!!

Amy.