Hey, it’s Jeff here! I hope I didn’t scare anyone off the couch :). It isn’t everyday that my brain is still functioning after we get back from our daily outing. But, since Ellen is feeding me, the least I could do was write the blog for today.
If the title didn’t give you a clue, yes we went to the top of Mt. Pilatus today. I know you’re probably waiting to the ‘it was fabulous, amazing, unbelievable, another 5⭐️ day!’ Well, would you believe we actually found some clouds today. Turns out, they like to hang out around 7,000ft!!
We did the ‘Golden Round Trip’! It’s a full-day scenic excursion from Lucerne to Mount Pilatus, combining a boat ride across Lake Lucerne, a cogwheel railway to the top of the mountain, gondolas, cable cars, and a bus back to town.
We walked to the boat from our B&B and the ride across the lake took a little over an hour to Alpnachstad. It was an easy stroll along the river and we got some nice pictures along the river front.
The original train station was built in 1856, and by 1910, after some remodeling, it looked like this:
Howver, it burned down in 1971, and they build a new, modern, one to replace it. But they kept this piece of the original.
This is the new, modern, station.
The boat dock is just across the street from the station, and we were soon off on our Golden Round Trip. It was a beautiful morning for a boat ride!
After arriving in Alpnachstad, instead of rushing across the street to catch the next cogwheel train to the summit, we hung back along the lake a took some more photos 🙂
They have two trains that leave a few minutes apart. Timing has to be spot on since there’s essentially only one track, with bypass lanes for the trains coming down. The Swiss have got timing down to a science!
Did we mention that Mount Pilatus cogwheel train is the world’s steepest cogwheel railway, climbing from Alpnachstad to Pilatus Kulm (the summit) with a maximum gradient of 48%! Oh yea, steep!!
This isn’t our picture, but you get the idea of how steep it is!
Here are a few pics from the top (where we found the clouds hanging out :).
Even Kermit was astounded!
After a little lunch snack, we noticed the clouds were gathering, so we thought we’d head to the tram for our first leg back down. When we got there, this was the view!
Well, we weren’t going to walk down, and hang gliding was out of the question, we sucked it up and got in line.
About a minute after we started down, we dropped below the clouds and had a beautiful ride down to the halfway point (whew)!
At the half way point, we exited the big tram and switched to the smaller (like 4 people, not 40) gondola for the rest of the way down. But first, we stretched our legs a little. Turns out there was a lot going on there.
And, what alpine adventure would be complete without these guys!
We had our own gondola for the rest of the way on the Gondola Interstate!
After a little walk down the hill from the gondola station, we were soon on our bus back to Lucerne.
Another perfect day in Switzerland!
