Europe Trip Part 7 - Mt Pilatus

We reached our hotel close to noon, just left our bags with the bell-boy and proceeded towards Mt.Pilatus.

Mt. Pilatus is one of the famous Swiss peaks, beautiful, with a panoramic view, and cold too, at about 7000 ft.

This was my first time in any cable car. I have never been in one in India. And obviously I was excited like a kid. They had the cable car running from the foothills of the peak to the top. The peak was so much above the clouds that the first leg towards the top, we were not able to see the peak at all. It was a hazy, cloudy view. The cable cars were pretty interesting. First we got into a four seater cable car, with the Iowa couple. It was closed from all sides obviously with glass windows. Everything was pretty automatic. Well, I dont know how it is in India, or US or anywhere, but I thought the whole mechanism was pretty cool. The cable car slows down at the station, where people embark. The door is open and you kind of get into it, as it is moving, in slow motion. Then it picks up a little speed, as the cable car goes outside the station to be fully driven by the cables. Initially we were just going on top of the city, with houses, and roads and trees. We were making some small talk with the couple. There were a pretty nice couple, very friendly, not bossy or snobbish. Ah, you know the mid-west folks, very mild and friendly and sweet. Apparently they left their cameras at the airport with their friends. So they had to do away with a bunch of disposable cameras. Poor them! Now we did not have our luggage with us. But smart me, I had our cameras, batteries, camcorder everything with me in my carry-on, so we did not miss out on the pictures. But of course, K kept the convertors for our chargers in his luggage and hence we had to borrow it for a few nights from this couple. And I did not stop telling K, for a hundred times, to not keep important stuff in the check-in baggage. K apparently had a lot of gifts for me for Christmas and New Year, some dresses and some other things. He was not able to give them to me.

So anyways, as we crossed the city and slowly climbed up towards the mountain, it was all snow, and those pine trees all around us. The first station was pretty close by and we were not supposed to get down there. Thats were the little kids had a place for themselves to do sledging. And that was the end of the sledging slope for the adults.



Then the big leg to almost the top followed. The view was mesmerising to say the least. Those trees were so so so tall and huge. There were some places which looked so deserted, and so much natural, with no human being's intervention, I wondered how it would feel to just get down there and walk along. As usual I was busy with my camcorder, while K was busy with his camera. We couples took pictures of each of us, with the snowy range at the background.




We could also see some folks sledging along down from the top. K wanted to do that now! He gets excited with this kind of outdoor activities. Yes it would be lot of fun, I said, but we can do that back in Lake Tahoe, when we are with friends we know, and we arent so far away from home. So even if we were to break our legs, rescue wouldnt be far away and our insurance would coer us fully. Oops. I just got carried away with my extensive imagination, read paranoia, there. It was darn cold. Thank god we go some fleece jackets in Venice, else god knows how we would have managed in this cold weather with our Falls jackets we wore from home.





As we were approaching Kriens, where we were supposed to get off, we saw the cloudy peak of the moutain standing tall, no trees there, just white snow, and clouds. It was all white and foggy, and cloudy. And cold. And aloof. Majestic. Like a king.



We got down at the station and we were to take another cable car, this time a bigger one, which held about 30 people, to go all the way to the top! We were so excited. We were actually going to the summit of a peak, almost 7000ft high!

A Canadian family made a drama in that car. The father of the family got left behind at Kriens and his wife was almost in tears, while her two children were not consoling her but were making fun of her. The teenage girl was saying something like "Well , its your husband, how did you loose him? " And the boy saying," He is not a kid Mom, he will find his way to us." I was obviously surprised at the girl's comment. The father was her husband. Was he not the girl's Dad? I could only sigh at the American/Canadian family bonding. Of course, our dear Luc, our guide, and friend, did manage to find the Canadian father and reunite him with his family.



We reached the peak. There was just one restaurant on the top, and we were given time to look around and have lunch there. There was a souvenier shop too, we got some post cards and fridge magnets, and we went out to take a look. It was very cold. It was windy. Nature at its best. Untampered by humans. Cloudy and foggy. Nothing but snow covered mountains. And hazy frozen lakes. We were comparing this peak to Mt. Everest. Mt Everest is more than three times higher than this peak. Hm. How would it be to reach the summit of Mt.Everest? The top of the world?!

We took a few pictures before grabbing some food. We just had some kind of a soup to drink. Everything else looked very fattening.

We had some time after lunch to explore the grottos nearby. These were some caves carved on the mountain, so we can take a look all around the peak and get some out-of-the-world snaps.



We saw this cute little house, and a cross on one side. Now who would be living there? A better question would be why would one be living there?



And nope, I never got my answer.

It was time to go zoooom in the cable car down to the city again. It felt almost like returning back from a journey to heaven. This time we were with the Australian single divorced lady in the four seater car. She was a sweet lady. But we felt sorry for her. I mean how can one come on such a trip, alone? She said she wanted to be away from home for Christmes, lest she feel lonely and depressed. I only hugged K tight, thankful for him being with me.

So I will fastforward some here. So went down and back to our hotels. We took some rest and went shopping to the nearby downtown kind-of-a-place. We did cross the wooden bridge, Kay told about in one of his comments. Wow, I did not know it pictured in a few of the movies. The wooden bridge was across the lake which was right in the middle of the city, and we walked over it to go to the shopping place.

K did not flinch a muscle as I entered into what was probably the most expensive shop in the place around and bought exactly four pieces of clothing for a 260 Swiss Francs. Which comes to about $300. K is a darling no? Given we didnt know then that Lufthansa will be reimbursing most of our expenses?

I am very finnicky when it comes to clothing. I have a select shops I go to buy my jeans or tshirts. Like Gap and Old Navy and Limited and Banana Republic. Now in Switzerland, the sizes were all messed up. I took way too long to decide on a sweater. And a jeans. So long I took, that all the shops closed before we could buy anything for K! I felt a teeny bit bad, that I took all the time to shop for myself, not bothering about K. I mean I told him, we should shop for him first because his will be over quickly, but he just did not listen to me.

It started snowing lightly as we headed back to our hotel. I was all covered in white from my head. I must have looked like Santa, cos K could not stop laughing looking at me.

We went back to our room, tired and took a short nap before going up for dinner. The dining place was on the 10th floor. It was all jazzy with music and dancing going on near by. We were a little too late, and dinner was already being served. We were too sleepy, so quickly finished eating before going back down to our room to settle in snuggly for a good night's sleep.

The next day was going to be a long day driving all the way to Paris.