Mt. Pilatsus

Location: Lauzer, Switzerland

Subject: The days activities included a loop around and over the top of Mt. Pilatus with an evening stroll and dinner in the old section of the city.

Due to the flooding most boat traffic on Lake Luzern had been temporally suspended due to a surge in debris in the water. Instead we played the train shuffle again. Thankfully I had checked with the TI located in the train station before simply waiting for a boat.

With all of 5 minuets to spare we made our train only to discover that our station would be only accessible by bus from the station just prior. Apparently they were still having problems with the rail lines though the region (not that much changes in a day).

While transfer off our train and waiting for the bus Jill and I were joking about the Japanese kid’s lack of a clue about the ambivalence towards him from a German girl at our hostile the previous evening when all of a sudden the very German girl steps off the train just in front of us.

After a some rather awkward moments of where we didn’t know to feel embarrassed about our comments or not Jill managed to strike up a conversation with the girl. We quickly found she was from Potsdam, but now was living and studying in Berlin.

With a quick bus ride hugging along the lake shore and ducking under cliffs and through tunnels we found our selves at the base of Mt. Pilatus and the start of the world’s steepest cog railroad.

At the top you find a two hotels starting at about 100 chf a night for this alpine hide away. A series of sun decks and outdoor dining offer spacitular and nearly 360 degree views of the region. The decks face south towards the Berner Oberland region where the Eiger is located near Interlaken. The sounds of cow bells from graving herds give the impression of large amount of wind chimes placed on the mountain top adding a surreal element to the already thin atmosphere.

In addition the Swiss Army has military instillations built into the mountain it self complete with a radar and communications array situated on one of the peaks. Word on the street is that these circular entry ways to the mountains side’s contain 80 mm guns with a range of nearly 9 miles. Both the added height and remoteness of these instillations act give the advantage of being in an out of reach area while still projecting force out over a vast region. The Pilatus instillation is one of many throughout the region and is intricate to the Swiss Militaries strategy of defense. Since if we weren't in the Lauzern area on a Monday and Boat traffic hadn't been suspened we weren’t able to take in Fortress Furigen. Fortress Furigen is a converted Swiss military instillation dedicated as a museum all thing Swiss military related. Rick Steve describes it as a weapon petting zoo.

Because of my kneen we decided to do the round trip by comming down the cable car on the otherside. You need to transfer to one more gondola to get us back down and to a suberb of Luzern. After squezing out of our sardine stuffed cable car our gondola was spent with a nice swiss older swiss couple that led us back to the bus stop after a quick detoure to used book and junk shop.

We spent our evening soaking up the photogenicness of the old section of Lauzern and a nice dinner along the river.