So two weeks ago Teesh arrived to the start her trip of a lifetime. She left London about a week ago to do a bit of Europe without me (Belgium, Amsterdam and Berlin) as I’d already visited those cities. It was time for me to meet up with her for leg one of my trip with her. We are going to cover a few cities which include Lucerne, Zurich, Innsbruck and Munich.

I actually visited Lucerne (and Zurich) just over two years ago. Lucerne was part of a larger day trip from Zurich but I was there for literally an hour on that occasion. Back then I thought it was a charming place but planning for this trip I wasn’t sure that it could actually entertain us for the two days and three nights we had planned on being here. I needn’t have worried because we didn’t end up spending that much time in Lucerne itself and instead used it as base for visiting the nearby peaks and lakes. Lucerne is a gorgeous city – I mean, it lies right by a beautiful lake, Lake Lucerne, has mountains such as Mt Pilatus for a backdrop and has a really cute medieval feel to the old town. What makes it pleasant for the traveller is the ease of getting around. Though there is public transport we were able to walk everywhere we needed to and we found that most “sights” were probably only ever within a 15-20 minute walk away.

Photos, Photos, Photos.

When?	Mid May 2009
Why Go?	Lakes, Mountains, Fresh air
Weather	Fine but cool enough for those who feel the chill to wear long sleeves, wicked cold at the top of Jungfraujoch
Hint	– If you’re planning to do some train travel in Switzerland and, in particular, visiting Jungfraujoch then be sure to pick up the Swiss Half Fare Card (not the Swiss Pass) which gives you 50% off train travel. You’ll get back the 99CHF you spend on the card back on your Jungfraujoch journey alone.
	– Do not get confused between the Swiss Half Fare Card, the Swiss Card and the Swiss Pass.
	– Travelling through Switzerland by train is as much about the journey (the scenery is simply breathtaking) as it is the destination. To make the most of your train journeys do a bit of research beforehand to make sure you’re sitting on the correct side of the train to take in the vistas – nothing worse than seeing the emerald lake or mammoth glacier mountains flashing by on the other side of the train! The coolest thing about the trains is that you can pull the window right down for glare-free photos!

The Experience

I arrived in Lucerne on Monday evening after catching an early afternoon flight out of London City Airport. I had my choice of airports to fly out of and since I’ve never flown out of City Airport I made sure to give it a go this time. It was fun! The runway is so short that the pilots really have to rev up the plane before letting go the brake to make sure we had enough juice to take off.

So, anyway our first task for the evening was to find somewhere for dinner. We made a promise to ourselves that no matter what country or city we were in we would try to eat the local food as much as possible. It was admittedly rather late by the time we decided to go out and get dinner but all that seemed to be open for food business were Italian restaurants! I’ve kind of gotten used to there being places to eat no matter what time of day it is in London so I was expecting the same sort of thing in Lucerne. Not sure why I felt like that! At any rate we hunted for what felt like hours and guess what we ended up eating? Lasagne! It was delicious but hardly Swiss food …

I mentioned before that we were mainly using Lucerne as a base for daily excursions. We only had two days so decided to split our time between Jungfraujoch and the Golden Round Trip to Mt Pilatus.

Jungfraujoch

Jungfraujoch, or the “Top of Europe”, is known for being the highest railway station in Europe at an elevation of 3,454m. Its one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe and one not to be missed … unless the weather does not look clear and then you may want to reconsider your 180CHF (that’s right – it ain’t cheap!) getting up there.

Jungfraujoch is not just a destination (though its one heck of a destination) so like all other trips in Switzerland just getting to Jungfraujoch is a journey to savour:

– We started our journey bitterly early (we had to get up at nearly 5am! which was a struggle since we only got to bed at about 1am …) to take a train from the main station in Lucerne to Interlaken Ost. This was a two hour trip. The weather wasn’t perfect but the beauty of the landscape surrounding us was still enchanting. I can’t remember exactly what stations we passed through but we had views of all sorts of farm land (land is sooo green), lakes and mountains along the way. We even saw some fighter jets taking off! Truly the photos just don’t capture how lovely it all was.

– At Interlaken Ost we had ten minutes to hop on to 20 minute regional train to take us to Lauterbrunnen where we had another 15 minutes to hop on to a rather cute and cosy train to take us to Kleine Scheidegg. At this stage the trains were still fairly comfortably filled and Teesh and I could afford to hog a couple seats by the windows (the sides, of course, being chosen according to research done by Teesh for the best side.) It was on this leg that we started to see the snow around us (though clearly we’d seen in on the top of the mountains previously.

Finally after a further 45 minutes travel we arrived at Kleine Scheidegg (altitude 2061m) which is the start of the start of the Jungfrau Railway (a modern cogwheel.) This journey, of which part of it includes tunneling straight through Eiger, took approximately another 50+ minutes but included two five minute stops inside the tunnel to give us a closer view of the infamous Eiger North Face. Interestingly it is known as ‘murder wall’ for the 64 climbers who have died trying to climb it since 1935. By this time the train was absolutely packed and many people chose not to even get off the train at the five minute stops just to preserve their seats. I almost don’t blame them – the climb is rather steep and puts a lot of pressure on you when you’re standing and trying to keep your footing. Interestingly the toilets inside the tunnel don’t have running water and in place of taps you have a towelette dispenser!

And finally, after nearly 4.5 hours travel from Lucerne train station we arrived at the “Top of Europe”!

You first emerge in an Ice Palace or Gateway or something which was basically, a large room with a couple of tunnels all encased in ice with ice sculptures in ice caves. It was a lot of fun trying to slip and slide around the place. Loved all the ice sculptures but to be honest the large hordes of tourists, yes I know I’m one of them, put me off a bit so we shortly left this place to head up and outside to see the snow.

And wasn’t Teesh just excited! She’s never seen snow before but it was BLOWING a giant gale outside and she’s not very comfortable with heights at all. To give her credit she didn’t hesitate too much getting outside and didn’t freak out too much but at one stage it got so windy that we could barely see our hands in front of us and at that stage she fell to hug the ground for fear of being blown off the top of the mountain. Heh heh. I don’t blame her – it was very very windy. I was surprised to see that it was only -2.3 degrees celcius. With the wind it definitely felt much colder.

On a nicer, more calmer, day there are a few things you could do like ride a husky dog sleigh (we had to settle for seeing them jumping around inside and then pretending to drive a dog sleigh …), hiking, ski and snowboarding, ride a zip line, or ride a snow disk down but all those activities were on hold.

After we’d exhausted ourselves going out to various view points and standing in a blizzard – yes it was that windy and cold – we had some lunch before heading back down the mountain. The air is noticeably thinner at the top of the mountain, not a surprise, and combined with my lack of sleep the previous week I felt quite dizzy at times though not enough, thankfully, to make me loose my balance or feel too short of breath. Teesh felt it a bit but then she’s a smoker so I would expect that.

Our trip down this time took us through Grindelwald (rather than Lauterbrunnen) which is down another side of the mountain. Equally beautifull but lots more houses.

On the way back to Lucerne we had some time to take a short walk through Interlaken. I’ve also previously visited it but its very small and there’s not really that much to see there. Very pretty, like many Swiss villages.

Golden Round Trip to Mt Pilatus

There are clearly many ways to travel up a mountain and in the Golden Round Trip you get to experience a few methods of transportation you probably don’t normally encounter in your every day life. It starts with a lake steamer over Lake Lucerne from Lucerne to Alpnachstad. This is an extremely relaxing 90 minute cruise around the bottom of Mt Pilatus.

At Alpnachstad you catch the world’s steepest cogwheel railway up to the peak of Mt Pilatus (2132m.) This 40 minute ride is even steeper than the one in Hong Kong I think – well I guess its not called the world’s steepest cogwheel railway for nothing. Heh heh. Along the way you’ll have some lovely views and if you’re lucky a clear day will mean those breathtaking views will continue once you reach the peak.

At the top of Mt Pilatus there are five hiking paths you can take to various peaks of the mountain. They were all pretty gentle and take between 10-35 minutes to walk. However, one I thought was a bit more strenuous mainly for the nearly directly climb upwards for a steady 10 minutes. It was worth it though for the 360 degree views from the top. Again, Teesh was a trooper, and though the railways sure got a work out from her at no point did she refuse to do the walks or climbs.

You could probably spend a few hours at the top of Mt Pilatus and maybe more if you were interested in having some lunch up there. We were pretty quick actually spending only a couple hours at the top purely because we were trying to get back to Lucerne for a lovely lunch somewhere. However, those plans were foiled when we discovered the toboggan run!

On one of our last walks around the top of Mt Pilatus I had spotted something silvery snaking its way down a bit of a slope. I worked out that it appeared to be people riding sledge type things and it turned out to be a giant toboggan ride. I was actually pretty scared of tipping off the toboggan so was a bit hesitant at going for a ride but I figured it may be my one chance to do the course. First we had to get on the aerial cableway to climb partly down the mountain. This ride only ended up taking 5 minutes! so all the way down in the cablecar I was eyeing the course thinking should I or shouldn’t I? Teesh was adamant she would not do it so she was no help. Ha ha. By the time I got to the bottom I decided I had to do it so off I went and I don’t regret it for a minute! After my first run the guy was like – go again? And I would have except Teesh was waiting for me and I couldn’t leave her alone to do the run again. Turns out that, after seeing that I’d survived and had so much fun, that she wanted to do it too! However, she was still a bit frightened and it took her about 45 minutes to decide to eventually take the plunge! The two deciding factors I think was 1. being able to tell the story later on and 2. the (middle-age) couple who went after me and were teasing her for being a chicken. LOL.

By the time Teesh was done we were both starving so we hustled to catch the gondola back down to Kriens (a 30 minute trip) where we finally caught a bus (15 mins) to take us back to our start in Lucerne. And thus, ended our Golden Round Trip. It was a lovely trip and actually, to our pleasure, didn’t take all day (we got back to Lucerne about 3.30) so after a late lunch we still had some of the late afternoon, early evening to explore a bit.

A Shocking Flash Storm

What we didn’t count on was a flash storm!

We were innocently heading around to some of Lucerne’s sights such as the old town walls and views from the watch towers before trying to get to the Lion Monument (a sculpture of a giant lion commemorating the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution) when the heavens opened on us. For probably 20 minutes it rained, it poured, it thundered, it lightninged (not a word but you know what I mean) and it hailed! We were lucky to find some cover but even then we were under threat from the flooding waters! One of the restaurants near us had their kitchen flooded in that 20 minutes and the chefs/kitchen workers all came running out with their trousers all folded up past their knees to avoid the flood! It was crazy! Customers in another restaurant could only watch us and laugh. As quickly as it came it disappeared and then we were rewarded with a nearly complete rainbow. Just beautiful.

Last Words

I am truly stunned by the absolute beauty we experienced in Lucerne. I’ve probably used the word breath-taking about a million times in this write-up but there’s no other way to describe the spectacular scenery. It’s the kind of scenery that you want to enjoy but then you also want to take a picture of every second you are looking at it. As a city Lucerne may not have a lot to keep you busy as a city in its own right, but as a base for visiting the surrounding areas you couldn’t find a nicer location.