Day 57: Down by the Bay

My day was pretty simple today. I went to the train station to deal with the routes and reservations I'd need for Italy, and once that was done just started following the lake as far as I could in the opposite direction to where I went the first day here. I was going at a leisurely pace, and since it was nice I stopped at various places along the walk for some lunch and to just sit at the edge of the lake and read some comics on my tablet while listening to music. Since the views out across the lake are something I've already posted a few times, I'm going to mention another interesting part of the city. Because there are always a lot of people walking by the water, there are a lot of waterfowl hanging out looking for handouts. I enjoy watching animals, and since it's spring you have a lot of young birds at different stages of development, so there's a lot of interesting dynamics going on. I was walking along the water for about 6 hours today, so there were lots of birds, so here's some pictures! I've mixed in a few from previous days too.

The best by far though, is these ones. The first one I took two days ago of a nesting swan I noticed before I went to Pilatus. The second is of the same nest today. I don't see how Hans Christian Andersen could use a baby swan as the ugly duckling, they're so cute!

Very early morning tomorrow to catch the first train in the sequence for Venice, but overall I've really loved Switzerland (minus the prices).

Day 56: Rigi

This morning I was feeling good and the weather was looking nice, so I decided it was time for phase 2. The destination this time was Mt. Rigi, which took another boat trip to get to. I had been told that Pilatus had the better views, but Rigi had the scenery - and Rigi is famous for hiking. It has a lot of trails on it, and unlike Pilatus which was largely snow and rock near the top, Rigi has rolling alpine meadows. I really wanted to hike Rigi from the base, but everybody I talked to said that it would take probably 4 hours of my limited time, much of which would just be going through forest, and advised I take one of the cable cars up and then hike around the top parts where the scenery was better. Rigi isn't so much a single mountain with one peak as a long stretch of peaks and valleys, and even starting from about midway in elevation from the top I spent the entire day going up and down as I worked my way along the trails, rarely having any flat stretches.

Part of why the scenery is so nice is that Rigi has great views of different parts of Switzerland. The north view, back towards Lucerne, is mostly flat and full of lakes, while the south view is dominated by long ranges of snow-covered mountains. These were my two favourite views I think, roughly down into the valley south of Rigi and facing west towards Lake Lucerne, with Lucerne to the right just out of sight. This second view especially I took like 20 pictures of from different places because it was overcast and the lighting kept changing a bit and I wasn't sure which would look best.

I ever recorded a video sweeping across the landscape with me describing which parts I've done things at, but my tablet won't seem to pick it up off my camera, so not sure if I'll be able to post it. I took the video along probably my favourite trail of the day - a trail that was in many places carved into the cliff face, with a huge drop off one side (it had a railing though). The drop meant that there were usually no trees obscuring the view, although it did get quite windy. I started hiking around 10:30, and caught the cable car back down around 5:30, so it was a pretty good hike. I was much better prepared this time as well. I brought my backpack with my hoodie and water, and even made a lunch to take along. After so many weeks of carrying all my things around, I don't even feel the backpack when it has so few things in it now.

To end, here's the new pants. I took the picture in a bit of an unfortunate place with the cable car thing marring the view, but I had to self take it, and it was the end of the day and I just didn't really care. At least the view is nice if you ignore that part of it.

I'm sure my legs will be a bit stiff tomorrow, so I'm planning to take it easy and spend more time in town. Sometimes the days I plan to take it easy turn into the craziest ones though, so who knows.

Day 55: The Fun Part!

I mentioned yesterday that at least two of my days I was planning to spend in nature, doing one the easy way and one the hard way. The plan for today was to do the easy way one.

When I was in Paris one of my roommates had been in Lucerne fairly recently, and was bemoaning the fact that the "Golden Circuit" of Mt. Pilatus wasn't running yet because not enough snow had melted from the peak. It turns out this circuit usually opens sometime in May, and it just so happens that it only opened up this year about a week ago. The circuit consists of a 90 minute boat ride from one side of Lake Lucerne to the other, followed by a cog train up the mountain. There's a bit of a hike to get from the train to the summit, but it's not a very challenging one. Then you take a gondola down the opposite slope, switch to a smaller cable car that almost takes you all the way down to Lucerene, and finally a short bus ride to get you back to Lucerene city center. Obviously the fact that not much of the effort to the ascent is mine is what made it the easy way, although I managed to find a way to make it a bit more exciting. I was doing this trip first as a bit of a scouting mission to get a better feel for the terrain and distances involved before I hike up one of the other mountains. The fact that the vehicles along the way were so diverse and interesting and the scenery was, well, impressive made the trip really fun even if I was cheating to get there. I'll break things down in a bit more detail.

First a bit of history. The summit of Pilatus is around 7000 ft. As far as mountains of the Alps go, it's far from the tallest, but it's certainly one of the biggest in the immediate area. It's apparently named Pilatus because it was rumored that Pontious Pilate was buried on it - and most fun of all, in the middle ages there was said to be a dragon living near the summit. Pilatus still uses a little dragon logo for all its tourism endeavors. For the actual tour, as I said, it started with a boat ride around Lake Lucerne. 90 minutes might seem like a long time to travel from one side of a mountain to the other side, but it bounced around at other ports along the lake to drop off some people and pick up others.

Once we got to the town on the other side of the lake it was time for the cog train. The Pilatus cog train proudly declares that it is the steepest cog train route in the world, ascending/descending at a 47 degree angle. The cog train was pretty neat because it wound between cliffs and tunneled through parts, but it gave me a really good idea of what a hike up would be like.

As that last picture suggests, the view was breathtaking. There was a compound at the top with a gift shop and cafe, but I had no interest in any of that. I walked the paths up to the summit, and was on the look out for something interesting to explore. There were visible trails along the slopes, but I didn't have tons of time since the last gondola headed down around 5:30, and I wasn't really equipped for anything too crazy. I had my messenger bag with me, which had my coat in it, and balance was a bit of an issue. There was one lonely church by a cliff a fair distsance down that had a big cross standing over this massive drop, and I was thinking about heading to it as something I was pretty confident I could get to and back from with the time I had. Then I heard some other people talking about seeing ibix, and suddenly I had a new goal. I asked them where they'd seen ibix, and they said that it was down slope from the very same church I had been considering, but that they could only see them with binoculars. They pointed me in the general direction, and I was off.

(That white building is the church. If you look closely you can see the cross above it, standing over a big drop)

The descent was a bit tricky. Balance was an issue as I said, and there were patches of snow, and wet rocks since all the snow is melting. I had a few small slips (and drew the first blood of the trip - surprised I made it this long!) but progress was steady without any real setbacks. As I wandered around the church looking down I spotted the group of animals I was pursuing. After a bit of maneuvering I got to a grassy slope that would take me down to where they were. It was pretty slow going as the ground was covered in loose rocks, but the grass gave good anchors. I took pictures periodically because I was afraid I'd spook the ibix when I got closer and they'd take off before I could get any pictures. I found a nice little perch across a band of snow from them and took some pictures. I could have gotten in closer I think, as they didn't seem too nervous about me, but I was close enough to take pictures and I didn't want to disturb them (and was also checking the time to make sure I still had enough time to make it back up). Anyway, here they are: alpine ibix, also known as capricorns!

As I climbed back up the grassy slope I stopped to take a picture of the view back down the mountain to Lucerne. You can also see the gondola that would take me back down the first 1/3 of the mountain. It's quite the drop.

The climb back up was probably faster than getting down was, but more tiring. I was sweating pretty good by the time I was back to the fenced in part, but still had 20 minutes to spare by the time I got to the gondola. The gondola ride was more gorgeous views, and then about a third of the way down it stops at an activity complex for kids that was just closing down for the evening. I switched to a much smaller cable car that I had to myself and enjoyed the rest of the descent down.

All in all, a very fun day. I feel fine right now, and I really didn't put too much strain on my body today, but I'll see how I feel in the morning before deciding which day to do my hiking trip on. From what I've been told, Pilatus has the better view, but this other mountain I'm eyeing has the better scenery, so it sounds perfect for hiking. The weather tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful again too.

Day 54: Into the Alps

A single afternoon in Lucerne and I'm already a bit smitten. After travelling for much of the day, plagued by little things going wrong thatjust added unnecessary stress, I had planned to check into my hostel, take go for a short walk and then take it easy for the evening. Once I got walking and enjoying the scenery and the town I just didn't have much desire in going back for quite awhile, so I ended up covering just about the entire city center and following one shore of the lake until it reached dense forest. It's late and I don't want this to be too long, so I'm not going to bother with explanations right now (if people really want details let me know and I can add them later), but here's some pictures to give an idea of what town's like.

The best part is that I haven't even gotten to the fun bits yet. With the 3 full days I have left my original plan was doing something naturey the easy way, doing something naturey the hard way, and spending a day checking out the city. Now that I've basically done the city part already I might squeeze in even more nature time. As for what "the easy way" and "the hard way" mean, stay tuned. Looking at those first two pictures though, I'm sure people that know me well have a good idea.

My only complaint - and it is a significant one - is that everything is ridiculously expensive here. A swiss franc is very close in value to a canadian dollar, yet food here is marked up 50-100% over what I've paid anywhere else so far. Pretty much impossible to get any decent meal for under 15 franc, and even food at the grocery store is pretty outrageous. I'm only in Switzerland for 4 days, so it's not a huge issue. The currency in general is pretty awesome. All the Americans that think our money is too colourful and looks like monopoly money have obviously never been to Switzerland. They also have the equivelant of a $5 coin that is massive in size and weight, and could probably be used as a deadly weapon.

On an aside, the visas for Asia are still killing me. It's looking like I'm going to have to cancel flights I have booked already, spend a bunch of extra money to fly somewhere extra to get visas done, and just generally make a chaotic mess of all the plans I had made. If I do go through all that and still have trouble getting the visas I'll really be upset, because then the tours I'm booking at considerable expense will be in jeopardy, and the entire Asia part of my trip could basically be ruined. Ugh. Nothing I can really do at this point but plan to give myself the best possible chance of getting everything I need in time and going from there.