A full day here in Switzerland and unfortunately the worst weather of the tour so far with constant rain this morning and all the mountains misted over with clouds so doubtful I will get many nice photographs today.
Woke up this morning feeling pretty tired due to being kept awake by the arrival of the dreaded lurgy (cold) that has been creeping around the coach and various people, probably something you cannot avoid even with popping multivitamins.
Also the lovely church that I so admired up on the hill near the hotel had bells which kept the time regularly every 15 minutes, plus half hour plus on the hour (two different tonal sets) plus at 6am there was a call to service that tolled for several minutes.
Couple that with the train line just on the lakeshore in front of the hotel and Lucerne being a major rail nexus point for Switzerland so trains every few minutes it was no surprise to find out that I was not the only person suffering from lack of sleep today.
Anyway, we headed off for a short orientation drive around Lucerne, then some of us went to the boat tour on the lake whilst the others were dropped off in the town to do shopping. The boat tour, although with the rain and clouds dampening the atmosphere a bit was great and there was not one stretch of the lakeshore that didnt have some sort of habitation.
After the boat tour we met up with the rest of the group and went to a particular shop that sold watches, knives etc etc. I guess some people love the shopping aspect of travelling but myself it bores me to tears, as Id rather be doing some sightseeing or just sitting at a nice bar or cafe and watching the locals. Thankfully the transfer to the mountain excursion was only about 45 minutes after this.
You know you must be getting higher up in altitude when in the coach your ears are popping already. As we headed up Mt Titlis (yes yes snigger away, we made all those jokes already) I was a bit worried as the last time I went up a cable car system up a high mountain about four years ago in Romania I also had a cold and lost my hearing in one ear for a few days as on the way down I couldnt equalise properly.
I can say that after experiencing the mountain, I cant believe some people elected to spend the whole day in Lucerne shopping. To get to the top of the mountain where the resort was we had to take 3 different cable car systems and in total it took around 30 minutes.
The first set were little 6 person cars, the next one was a bigger one car system that handled around 80 people and the last cable car was a wizzbang circular one that rotated around to give 360 degree views.
Unfortunately that was a bit wasted today as the mountain was clouded over, so essentially you saw nothing, hence I didnt take all that many photographs.
At the top was a huge five level building with several restaurants and the highest bar in europe (tragically it was CLOSED) but Freeman and I managed to get a beer in the cafeteria the level below, so I guess it almost qualifies!
We walked outside and I was glad that I had packed several layers including my waterproof jacket as it was snowing! Goodness, I was excited as Ive not been in snow since i was a kid. anyway, another option you could do was the Ice Flyer that was a chair lift that went over the crevasses of the glacier up the top of the mountain. Of the 25 or so of us, only 9 selected to do this – Luigi our driver had come up the mountain too, but he chickened out of doing this open chairlift.
Again, couldnt really see much with the chairlift due to the snow and mist, but on the other side there was a set-up where you could go down in an inner tube, and man, that was awesome fun, I almost came a cropper as I slid down backwards and around a huge bank (it was kind of like a bobsled track carved out of the snow.
Most of us wanted to have another go, but here is where I again have to mention my least favorite part of the trip in dealing with other tourists particularly from india. This particular mountain was obviously very popular with the indians and they again showed how rude and impolite and selfish that a large majority of them are.
The innertube ride, you rode down in the inner tube and then came back up an escalator with your tube where you were supposed to deposit them so people waiting to go down could grab them.
Well, this is the theory but for a whole group of indians they followed a different theory which was to keep hold of their tubes and hand them to their friends waiting up the top and not in the line waiting to go down. Just selfish really but as I mentioned, whenever I have encountered indians on this trip they are often rude, pushy and well if this makes me sound a bit racist well so be it.
Anyway apart from that incident, the whole Mt Titlus experience ranks as one of the best of my whole trip so far. As I came down the mountain unfortunately I did suffer some ear problems that are continuing today as we drive to Paris (when Im writing this).
After the mountain excursion (and having to wait another 20 minutes for two of our tour, Bernie and his wife Ann who got the meeting times wrong & had to wait for another cable car to come down) we headed back to Lucerne for another two hours of free time.
Freeman and I had already decided we were not into shopping so wandered around until we found a bar next to the river and sunk a few half-litres of beer until it was time to head back to the hotel.
This evening we had a dinner in the hotel, followed by some free wine afterwards which was Marks way of apologising for the poor seating we had the previous night at the Swiss folklore evening.
Wisely I called it an early night as I could see Nick, Hillary and Sally hooking into the drinks and I knew there was no way Id keep up and plus with my cold it was best catch some sleep. Yes if you are reading this Nick, youd be calling me a skippy pommie poofter for piking on a big night but Im sitting here looking normal on the coach and you are nearby still looking green!
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