We took a round trip to visit Mount Pilatus. The first leg of the journey was across the lake, taking in the beautiful vistas. The boat dropped us off at the bottom of the mountain so we could take a carriage on the cog railway to the top of the mountain. After enjoying the beautiful vistas at the top of the mountain, we descended the mountain by cable car and gondola, followed by a five minute walk to catch a bus that would return us to the railway station at Lucerne.
At the beginning of the adventure we met a couple of New Zealanders who we kept bumping into throughout the day. We spent a lot of time with them over the journey and had some interesting conversations.
Before we set off in the morning I packed my fleece into Mr Cs backpack because mountain tops are always cooler than ground level. Sure enough a cloud descended and so did the temperature. I donned my fleece and tucked my scarf around my neck to keep warm. Mr C decided to climb up to one of the viewpoints, I chose to stay behind and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere.
Whilst he was gone it started to rain, I briefly considered going inside but I realised that would be rather silly when I had a perfectly good umbrella in my bag. Everyone else was rushing for shelter as the rain took a rather heavier turn. An American lady glimpsed me as she walked past and said ‘Smart Lady’. I smiled to myself and thought we Brits have to be prepared for all (weather) eventualities.
After we descended the mountain it got rather warm and we took the opportunity to relax in a cafe bar with a cooling drink and an ice cream cone. We made it back to the hotel just ahead of a thunderstorm and torrential rain. Luckily the storm had stopped before it was time to stroll out for dinner. We didn’t pick the best of places for our evening meal, the food was nice but we were rather rushed through our meal.
We took another leisurely stroll through town arriving at the bar next door to the hotel for a night cap before retiring for a good nights sleep.
They have proper mountains there. Very impressive.
You would love the views
I’m pleased you like the area. I spent nearly four months just out of Neuchatel doing contract work.
I don’t know when you were there but the thunder storms with rain are typical of these mountain areas in the summer. In fact we have had them on and off from mid June.
I was there last week and yes we had a couple of thunderstorms. Both of them were around 5 O’clock when we had returned to the hotel to freshen up before going out for the evening, so they didn’t cause us any problems.
The storms were quite welcome, they freshened up the atmosphere and took the humidity away. I do have some photos of the rain, taken from the hotel window;-)
Beautiful pics and stories. I bet it smelled heavenly with the mountain air in the rain??? I am now picturing you sitting under your brolly snapping pics in the rain. Like it was ordered just for you, Cherie.
When I moved to Vancouver I was stunned at how clean and crisp the mountain air was. Boy, was I glad I had quit smoking so that I could enjoy it.
I have no sense of smell so it isn’t possible for me to appreciate the air in that way. But the rain made the air feel fresher.
It’s so beautiful!
I am sure you would love it there.
Good for you, equipped with umbrella, fleece and scarf. You are right – our English weather makes us ready for anything. I notice lots of women carry umbrellas in their handbags as a matter of course. Your trip up the mountain sounded very appealing in spite of (or perhaps because of) the change in weather
Prior to it dropping chilly a had been wearing my scarf round my neck to keep the sun off. The change of weather freshened the air up.
Lucerne must be a very popular place.
He he… I always keep a brolly in my bag too!
It’s a black “Ultralite”.
It is a very popular place, we bumped into people from several different countries.
an engaging post. its always a challenge, i find, to decide what to pack in before a journey, since i like to travel light without missing the essentials. i did this visit but for our group, we did both the ascent and the descent via the cogwheel. similar to your recount, there was a bank of clouds rolling in when we reached the top and it was quite unreal to see the cable car materializing out of the oblivion.
I bet seeing the cable car like that was quite spectacular. The cloud was too high for that on my visit.