Switzerland

A view of the switchbacks.

Switzerland! Oh how I love Switzerland. The majestic blue oceans on the shores of western Italy, the immense footprint of art and architecture in Paris, Rome and Florence are all breathtaking, but Switzerland just grabs my heart. Hailing from Minnesota - a land of lakes, trees, rivers, lakes and slightly larger lakes - I can identify with the core of Switzerland, beautiful landscapes. Take away the dreary flatness that makes Minnesota land terribly expensive farmland and replace it with Swiss mountains. Put the snow on top of the mountains instead of Minnesota fields. Throw in a few winding railways, the look of Swiss architecture and the allure of Switzerland itself and I melt. I stared out my window the entire train ride into Switzerland.






After we arrived in Luzern we explored the town for provisions and our hotel. It happened to be the only one-star hotel in Luzern, but the Swiss idea of one-star is far from the American thoughts. We didn't get a free bar of soap, but it was nice.
In Florence we had talked about all going out to dinner after hiking Mount Pilatus. We scoured a few local magazines and then scoped the places out. One proffered an all you can eat taco bar. After a day of hiking, we thought we had sealed the deal. Well... 35CHF(~$40USD) made the tacos a little less appetizing and we decided to seek out other options. Same story elsewhere... so we went back to the grocery store next to our posh accommodations. Closed... for a holiday(which? I don't know). Same with the shop down the street. Luckily the grocery store in the basement of the train station was open! And the line for the checkout snaked along two walls of the building, but with hunger as our spice it was the an absolute culinary perfection. The bread was ripped apart with bare hands giving every sandwich one ridiculously thick side.


The real adventure lay on Mount Pilatus, west of Luzern with the city of Alpnachstad at its base. Luzern and Alpnachstad are conveniently connected by a ferry, so we took this new and interesting form of travel not found in the central United States.

Ferry wizardry is normal on Lake Luzern

I had to convince her I really, really did want the hat

From the base of Mount Pilatus the ascent is approximately 1.1 miles or ~5700 feet to a final altitude of just over 7000 feet. It was about 45F when we hiked in early June so I bought a lovely hat at the gift shop. The sales girl really, really tried to talk me out of it!




Along the way we walked through the clouds, mud, uncooked cow pies, James got philosophical, Sam left us behind and I photobombed Anton. I mean, I did take 1443 pictures while in Europe.

Most of it was actually mud.

Standing in the clouds.

James got philosophical on a tree stump.