Lucerne log (1)

Today was a day of mountaineering.

Along with many other people, we caught a train this morning from Lucerne to Engelberg (forty seven minutes) in order to scale the Titlis mountain. Actually we ascended by cable car, which ran in three sections: the first two were 'mundane' (as if any cable car to a mountain is mundane) but the third section was in a car whose floor rotates, thus allowing all the people within to have a 360 degree view.

The peak of the Titlis is 3020 metres, making it the highest mountain that we have visited so far. It is above the snow level, and when we got to the summit, we walked out of the observation building onto a snowy path. It's just as well that I invested in a good pair of leather shoes for otherwise my old leather shoes (with cracked soles) would have caused my feet to freeze. I saw Asian girls wearing open shoes - good luck to them. We also walked around the glacier grotto - a path cut into the glacier itself. As this was dark, we couldn't really see very much.

Coming down was of course similar to going up, although much less crowded and so enabling a better view.

After catching the train from Engelberg back to Lucerne, we then took another train, this time to Alpnachstad (only twenty minutes away). Here we bought tickets for the Pilatus mountain, a dwarf at only 2132 metres, below the snow level. The cogwheel railway is supposedly either the longest in the world, the steepest in the world or both. At some places, the slope is 48%! To my surprise, I discovered that the railway had been built in 1889, originally with steam trains and then electrified in 1932. Even though I am becoming blase about cogwheel railways and/or funiculars, this ride was definitely one to be savoured.

Coming down from Pilatus was via cable car; whilst this was a very long ride (in three sections), most of it was similar to the ride from Cardada, albeit starting from a higher altitude. Again, the cable car path was shielded by trees on both sides; whilst this minimises the view from the cars, the trees probably act as wind shields, preventing shaking.

The Pilatus cable car 'lands' in a place called Kriens, presumably a suburb of Lucerne. One returns to the city via bus.

The weather today was very good, although a bit too hot for my liking. At the summits of the mountains, the air was cool (of course, especially on top of Titlis) but lower down was very humid later on in the afternoon. There was a short and heavy shower at about 7pm, after we had returned to our hotel; this cleared the air a little.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring heavy rain all over Switzerland which is going to put a severe cramp into our plans.