Random Musings of an Unemployed Mind: Adventures of a Swiss Miss

I know I know ... its been a while. But believe me - I have some fantastic reasons for it - which I will choose to reveal at a later date - sanity, mental well-being and non-incarceration permitting.

Where I left off last was us trooping off from Lucerne to catch a cable car that would take us to the heights of Mt Pilatus. Remember Pontius Pilate etc etc ... if you don't, go back 2 posts and reread or read it here.

Now I'm going to try and do the progression pics - as we go up ...

Really guys - isn't that simply breathtaking? That's the thing about Switzerland - you need to actually give the camera a break, because the views most definitely aren't.

Now once we were up there, we ate up a feast at the ONE cheapie restaurant they have there (which is also far from being cheap - they gave me a bowl of pasta with a thimble-full of tomato sauce to go with it and extracted almost 15E for that - chindi chors.) After that we started to do a nice dose of walking. They have a lovely trail path carved into the mountain and alongside it, so we decided to go where the mountain took us.

Entrance to the grotto-ish tunnel ...

Inside the tunnel, they have all the mythologies surrounding the mountain written up on little boards to give you some kind of fun perspective ...

The clouds were so thick at places that you may have been tempted to lean over and pick a flower ...

... but then you would have been met with CERTAIN DEATH ...

At some places the clouds even seemed close enough to catch ...

... but needless to say, that would also have meant the above.

The good thing about being summertime (besides the fact that we weren't freezing our pants off) was that there was lots of flowers and birds that were wandering around, so we managed to catch quite a bit.

In the distance were snow-capped peaks ... I guess of Titlis (yes, there is a mountain named that) and Jungenfrauch. It was a lovely walk though, and although by the end I could have sawed off my own legs and donated them in exchange for a wheelchair - all-in-all, I will say - absolutely luverly.

After that it was time for our trip back to base camp - and this time, they took us by train - the steepest cogwheel railway in the world supposedly. At some places the train is almost at an unbelievable 48 degree angle to the ground ... but before you think that we spent the trip being held in place by titanium chains and with mass chaos and pandemonium as people bounced inside the compartment - sadly, that was not true. The train itself is built almost like a staircase - so umm, if you were to take the train off the railway, the shape of the train is not flat, but a staircase, so at however a crazy angle you're traveling, you're still sitting upright on your chair. In comparison, although I don't remember the specifics, I remember taking a fairly steep train up to the Peak, at Hong Kong, and remember yelling good-naturedly along with all the passengers as we lurched up and down. So clearly, the Swiss aren't used to ANY level of discomfort on their train trips.

So that was the steepness level. Don't get it? See the video ... and don't worry, I'm not falling out of the train in the video, I'm just getting ambitious with my ability to lean out.

We sat at different levels ...

... and caught some spectacular views ...

If you can look beyond the heads, you can actually see the declination of the path ...

And once we were back on solid ground, it was time to take a leisurely boat ride back to Lucerne. Of course enroute, I saw glimpses of what my life should have been ...

Now THAT is a Saturday afternoon ...

A backyard view to kill for ...

And around the bend was Lucerne, where we caught our bus back to Zurich for a well-deserved and cheap-ass dinner and drink. Great day in totality - saw tons, and successfully attacked at least a few kgs on the ol' weighing scale.

Now for my favorite part ... the fun random pics.

Yes - there is either a man, or a company called 'Buttholz' that manufactures ply. My sympathies with either. This almost beats out a certain R Banchhod of previous fame.