Trips

       Once again we put together back-to-back trips to minimize the time spent flying back and forth to Europe and other places. These two trips combined a land tour of Switzerland with a river cruise on the Rhine and Mosel Rivers. Europe is repleat with churches, interesting buildings, and other photographic attractions which, in the course of a general narrative, may be redundant to some viewers (as in the famous remark: "ABC" meaning "another bloody church.") Therefore, I have, for the most part, established links to pages with photos dedicated to churches, buildings, etc. Especially interesting on this trip were all the signs for businesses and all the different clocks, so these also have their own pages. This way, if you don't want to see another ABC, you don't have to. The links for these special pages are on the Switzerland Itinerary below and on the Rhine Itinerary on its page. If you access these pages from the body of the web pages you will have to use your back arrow to return to your original location.

      One thing you need to keep in mind about Switzerland is that they have FOUR national languages: Swiss German, Swiss French, Swiss Italian, and Romansh. That makes for multiple names for just about everything! So, don't be alarmed when you see different spellings for the same thing.

      All of that said, we had a great trip and saw a lot of beautiful things and fascinating places! Enjoy the pictures and Gale's narrative.

 

Country Roads of Switzerland

Sat., 6/14/14/ & Sun., 6/15/14 – Denver, Chicago, Zurich, Lucerne – Happy Birthday, Marge!
       We got up at 3:30 AM and were at the airport by 5 AM for our 8 AM United flight to Chicago.  After 3 ½ hours at O’Hare Airport we flew to Zurich on Swiss Air.  The flight was 8 ½ hours.  We arrived in Switzerland at 6:30 AM (or 10:30 PM Denver time) to start a second day with no “horizontal” time.  We waited another 3 hours at the Zurich airport for more of our tour group to accumulate and were then bused with our Insight tour director, Sara, to Lucerne.
       This evening we met our whole group of 37 travelers at a Welcome Dinner.  We had a very nice three-course chicken dinner at a nice lake side restaurant, Sprungli.  Two glasses of wine were included.    Before dessert, Sara had Marge served with a chocolate cake with three candles.  We sang Happy Birthday, to Marge’s embarrassment, but the cake was so delicious she forgave us.  Our table of seven shared her birthday cake.

Mon., 6/16/14 – Lucerne
         This morning we went up to the top of Mt. Pilatus or Pilatus Kulm.  Our motor coach (a nice new 50 passenger bus with plenty of leg room) drove us around the lakes to Alpnachstad where we all got on one of the cog railway cars.  The 40-minute ride took us up the very steep terrain.  This is the steepest rack railway (a form of cog) in the world with an average gradient of 35% and, in several places, a gradient of 48%.  We passed from 1431 feet of elevation to 7,000 feet going from deciduous trees to spruce to tundra and passed through several tunnels.  At the top we had 40 minutes to walk around. On top we enjoyed the views and strolled along the flower trail.       
         Our entire group squeezed into one cable car for the five-minute ride to Frakmuntegg.  In Frakmuntegg we transferred to four-person gondolas for the 25-minute ride down to Kriens where our bus picked us up and drove us back to Lucerne.  The trip was an introduction to the Swiss Alps and the modes of transport for climbing into the peaks.

Flag of Switzerland, the only square flag in the world	Swiss license plate with letters indicating LUcerne and a flag on the right to indicate the Canton (state) of Lucerne
Mt. Pilatus towering over Lucerne	Logo of Mt. Pilatus Railroad
Rail and cable system of transportation	All kinds of skiing runs
Up we go!
Hotel and visitor center on Mt. Pilatus	View from on top
Cable car down	After a quick trip to the Co-op for lunch materials, we walked to the Old Town to take pictures of the 14th c. covered bridge, Chapel Bridge, with the battle scenes painted on panels across the overhead trusses.  We looked inside the Jesuit St. Francis Xavier Kirke.  Its white walls are well decorated with gold leaf and red marble, which we later learned was just painted wood and then wandered up to the old City Wall (called the Musegg Wall), first built in 1386, that has several towers spaced along its length.  We climbed up the wooden steps of the clock tower that had old clock mechanisms on display and walked along the ramparts to the next tower to descend.  We continued strolling through the narrow streets taking pictures and eventually got back to our hotel.
Chapel Bridge	Chapel Bridge
Jesuit Church of St. Francis Xavier	Old City Wall
Clock on a tower of the Musegg Wall	Old clock mechanism
Another of the nine towers of the Musegg Wall	Fritschi Fountain
Preserved gateway to the old train station - new in the background	At 7 PM we joined some of our group for an optional excursion of dinner and a folklore show at Stadtkeller, a Swiss folklore restaurant in the Old City.  The meal was okay, especially the cheese fondue with brown bread starter.  The show was second rate, but we enjoyed the spoon clapping, the Alpenhorn quartet, and the flag throwing.
Stadtkeller, a Swiss folklore restaurant	Alpenhorn quartet

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