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Today we had big plans on our trip itinerary. Along with the regularly scheduled sights, Christy, Mike and I had also signed up for additional excursions for the day. Many charter groups offer these little excursions that you can pay extra for while on your trip. They feature additional sights and experiences not offered on the regular trip itinerary. The tour company you book with waits until the last minute to tell you what they are in the hopes that the average guest will "impulsely buy" into them. While I was looking at our company's brochure (before booking this trip), I was able to figure out what some of them would be ahead of time. By doing some preliminary research, I was able to determine which of the offered excursions were good values and which ones to try to avoid.
The tour groups make these offers even more enticing by not charging you for them until 6 or 7 weeks after you return home (A small 10% deposit is typically charge in cash when you book them though.). You don't have to really worry about it affecting your budgeted spending money. (Up to this point the only excursion that we had signed up for in Italy was the gondola serenade in Venice. When I had spoken to a few people that had visited Venice and consulted a well known travel website, I found out that the typical rate for an evening gondola ride runs about $80 per person. So, when the tour company offered it up at a mere cost of only $35, it seemed like a bargain especially since we'd be accompanied by musicians.)
Our regularly scheduled tour began with a visit to Thorwaldsen's Lion Monument. It is a huge sculpture of a lion carved into a mountain . It was created to symbolize the Swiss Guard members that had died guarding France's Royal family in the Tuilery Palace during the French Revolution. The sculpture is incredibly moving.
We left the monument and were given some time to shop in a few local giftshops that had been opened specifically for us. (Normally all shops are closed within the city of Lucerne on Sundays.) A few hours later we would be taken by bus to our excursion to the top of Mt. Rigi. (otherwise known as the "Queen of the Swiss Alps"). I had been nervous since looking through the excursion guide. Mike had expressed a definite interest in traveling to the summit of at least one of the Swiss Alps while we were in Switzerland. He originally wanted to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus but that excursion wasn't available to us on our particular visit. I was a bit relieved to hear that news because the guidebook had also mentioned that we would've been required to ride in at least 3 cable cars to get to Mt. Pilatus. The idea of traveling in even one caused me to be very afraid. (As a child I think I viewed way too many disaster and action movies that featured the demise of cable cars! )For most of the day, I was very nervous at the sheer thought of having to ride in one. Christy and Mike had always supported my decisions regarding the trip so it was time I did the same despite my apprehension. I signed up for the excursion and am very glad that I did.
Our bus driver took us to the resort town of Weggis where we boarded a cog-wheeled train that took us up to the summit of Mt. Rigi (oldest train of its kind to go through the Alps). The trainride was rather slow and rickety but the views were great. When we finally arrived at the top, it was very overcast and we couldn't see anything. It was also incredibly cold. We decided to go into the restaurant and have lunch in an attempt to warm up. We also hoped that the weather might clear up a bit while we were inside eating. The lunchroom was "cafeteria -style" and kind of reminded me of a dining area in an Ikea store, that is, except for the prices! I only had about 20 Swiss Francs on me (about $16 USD) and it only bought one sandwich (for Mike), a granola bar and two bottles of water! I didn't even get any change!
After eating our snack (that was really supposed to be our lunch) we went outside and climbed up to the observation deck. We took a few photographs of ourselves ducking behind wooden Swiss figures with the faces cut out and kept hoping that the weather would change so that we could actually see something! Our wish for better weather was finally granted once our entire group boarded the train for the ride down the mountain. Thankfully, we were able to get off the train fairly quickly to snap a few photos before the train began to descend the mountain. (There was an ESPN Camera crew from Brazil on our train which I believe may be the reason that the train engineer delayed our departure.)
We went down one level before being ushered off the train and instructed to head towards the cable car system. The car we were about to board was very large (about 80 people capacity) and already had a group of Asian tourists inside of it. Our group piled in and I did my best to find a good spot where I could clearly "hold on for dear life." Once the ride started, I soon realized that it wouldn't be a scary ride at all. The cable car system that we rode on reminded me a lot of the elevators that you can take up and down to the top of the CN tower in Niagara Falls. The views from this vantage point were absolutely gorgeous! When we reached the bottom we all wished we could do it again!
Later on the day, we met the group again in front of Lucerne's Opera House. We had also signed up for the "Evening Cruise on Lake Lucerne." This excursion was one of the best that we went on. The lake was as smooth as glass and we started out on the boat just as the sun began to set. The price of the excursion included a cocktail and "appetizers", this was a bit misleading though. The only appetizer they served were barbecued pork rinds (no thanks)! Throughout the cruise our boat captain would call attention to points of interest along the way, including: a castle and a hotel where Audrey Hepburn used to stay frequently as a guest. We also learned how expensive real estate was around this lake too (An average ranch house like mine would be worth about 1.5 million if it were located on this lake!).
When the cruise ended the group headed back to the hotel for our farewell dinner in Lucerne. Christy and I needed to find a restroom so Mike left us behind as we searched the nearby train station for a bathroom. This proved to be more involved then we suspected because all of the signs were in German and neither one of us knew any German! We did make quite the accidental discovery... There was a hidden mall in the train station. It was even open that evening! When we told the rest of our group about this they were pretty mad because we had been led to believe (by our tour director) that the only shops that would be open on Sunday were the high priced souvenir shops that our director took us to (probably to gain another kickback)!
I made another observation while I was here. In the train station/mall, you did have to pay 2 Swiss Francs to use the restroom but for an additional 2 you could also take a shower! The bathroom actually had private, coin-operated shower stalls. Just think how cool that is! If you decided to ride the Eurorail train between countries in the middle of the night (to save on having to stay at a hotel), you could still take a shower and greet your new destination all clean and refreshed!
Once, we were done with the facilities we went back to the hotel for our evening meal. The Australian couple in our group let us sample some of their dark chocolate, cherry- flavored Swiss chocolate bar at the dinner table. I had always heard that sometimes people put cocoa powder in their chili but I had never heard of a chocolate company putting chili powder in their chocolate until then. Surprisingly, it tasted pretty good... but then again most Swiss chocolate tastes great anyhow!
After dinner, we took in the view of the city of Lucerne from the hotel's penthouse balcony before retiring to our room for the night. Mike and I frantically began to fill as many water bottles as possible to take with us to Paris the next day. Switzerland's water is fantastic. Not only do I miss the taste of it but my skin and hair miss it too!
previous travel blog entry
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