My Passport’s Travels

After a lovely night’s sleep, we were up early – we have a full day today. Our hotel rate includes breakfast, and it started early enough that we were able to enjoy it. A lovely, big continental breakfast with several types of bread (including croissants!!), cheeses, meats, fruit, yogurt and hard boiled eggs. Fueled up, we headed out at 7:15 to find the bus station – just a short 15 minute walk down the river and through a park.

We met up with our tour bus and we were on our way to Lucerne! (We had booked the excursion through Viator: Mount Titlis Cable Car with Ice Flyer and Lucerne from Zurich.)

He dropped us off near the shipyard and walked us over a bridge along the lake to KKL Lucerne, the Culture Center, the first stop on the map he provided, then set us free with two hours to explore.

Most everyone hurried off, but we decided to walk along the lake, through the (closed) Christmas Market. It was fun seeing some of the interesting offerings (a Jack Daniels Honey stand??) and a lovely walk.

They had a huge “Wünschbaum” (Wishing tree), when the market is open, you can write your wish, slip it in a plastic holder and hang it on the tree.

Continuing down the river, we passed the train station.

The Chapel Bridge is over 900 years old! It’s graced many a jigsaw puzzle!

We planned to walk on it, but got distracted by an interesting church with a fountain out front.

Then we saw the building with interesting artwork just down the street. And on the way there, may have stopped at a souvenir shop. Maybe…

Time to make our way back to the bus – along the main bridge they had Christmas lights up. I bet it’s beautiful at night all lit up!

We had time for a quick latte before boarding the bus and heading on to our next stop – Mt. Titlas! Leaving town, I checked the outside temperature: 7 degrees Celsius.

While in Lucerne, we also had our first encounter with European public restrooms – and it was free! (Often there will be a small fee, which isn’t hard to pay as the restrooms are generally immaculate.) This one, though, was not heated, had metal seats, and that 7 degrees Celsius is approximately 44 degrees Fahrenheit.

One quick note, we passed a gas station advertising 1,72 Swiss Francs/liter of unleaded – the equivalent of approximately $8/gallon!

The drive started in town, but about 30 minutes into it, we made it to countryside and started seeing snow!

Many switchbacks up the mountain later, we made it to base camp. (Interestingly, the temperature had only dropped one degree Celsius. But that would change at the top of the mountain!) While waiting for our guide to purchase our tickets, we saw a gentleman wearing a sweatshirt with a huge pocket that went all across the front – and his Dachshund’s head sticking out one side of it!

It’s a two-fold process to the top of Mt. Titlas – first a gondola ride that takes about 20 minutes to get you most of the way up. (Don’t get off at the first stop halfway up!)

Then a huge 64-person gondola that take you up the final 5 minutes. It’s supposed to rotate, but the winds were too strong for it to do that today. They also weren’t allowing any skiers on the mountain, either. Or the Alpine Flier (a 10 minute ski lift ride across a glacier). Or the suspension bridge between two peaks. On the bright side, Viator automatically refunded a portion of our tour price because so much was closed at the mountain. And honestly, if the wind was that strong, I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to walk across the suspension bridge.

I did enjoy the Glacier Cave – a tunnel cut through the glacier, with some ice sculptures. You have to watch your step, it’s slippery! (Mom decided not to risk her “aftermarket parts” on the ice.)

I even found a few ice seats!

This group of young adults figured out their boots were made for sliding on the ice!

I met back up with Mom and we headed up to the top of the observation building and outside into -7 degree Celsius temperature (approx. 19 degrees F). But more importantly – into the SNOW!!! It was officially snowing!!

We had time to kill and we were starving! The restaurant at the observation building was just what we needed! Mom had the Gerschnialp Rösti – a huge potato pancake with ham, Raclette cheese melted over the top, and a fried egg.

I had the Panorama Rauchgrillwust – a cheese filled sausage with onion sauce over a huge potato pancake. Talking later – it turns out we both thought the other picked better and should have said something at lunch! LOL!

Dessert was Lebcuchen that we shared – which here meant a mini-gingerbread loaf. (Most places in Germany, it would mean gingerbread cookies.) It was dense and ginger-y and so good!

Then, it was time to start the 30 minute trek down the mountain. A bird saw us off.

We boarded the first gondola, which sounded like the Tower of Babel with all the conversations in several different languages! https://youtube.com/shorts/AHMWzvrQ1Cs?feature=shared

Down, down into the clouds.

Not sure what all the symbols mean – the middle one on the left looks like the man opened the door and is jumping out with his snowboard!

More snow!

And we’re back to the bus and on our way. Here’s one of the switchbacks!

Many of the roundabouts had neat monuments in the middle.

We arrived back in Zurich around 6:30 – 10 1/2 hours after we left. But it was a fantastic day! (Even if we looked like drowned rats most of the time.) On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the train station for their indoor Christmas Market.

Every year the 50-for tree has a different decoration – this year is Lindt!

Coming out the other side, we accidentally found the “Lucy Lights”! The street is decorated with thousands of white lights – “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!” They had just been turned on for the holidays a couple of days ago.

We did a little window shopping – found this sweet fellow outside a chocolate shop.

We were neither one super hungry, but knew we needed some dinner, so stopped at Coop, a grocery store across the River from our hotel, and grabbed a couple of pretzels, soft cheese, waters and Coke Zeros to picnic back in the room. Tomorrow, we explore Zurich – and more importantly – we don’t have to set an alarm!