PTM // Contiki: Day 5 - Lucerne, Switzerland

This morning Ryan and I set our alarms for 8:00AM because breakfast was being served at 8:30. We headed down to breakfast, and I wasn’t too impressed at all. The dinners here at the hotel have been quite good, but this breakfast was pretty light. Lighter than the breakfast in Paris which is hard to believe.

After breakfast we all headed for the coach and went into town to see the famous Lion Monument here in Lucerne. After seeing the Lion Monument we had about an hour free time so I headed off on my own to see if I could get access to wifi along the river. Eveyone I had asked told me that there was no free wifi, and that I should go here, and there to pay for it. I decided to park myself on a bench next to the river and see if I could get a connection. At this point, I’m feigning to get on the internet, reply to emails, update my website, and everything else that I hadn’t done in days.

At last I found a connection, but at that point it was time to meet up with the group to go on the Contiki Optional boat cruise around Lake Lucerne. We boarded the boat at around 10:30AM, and it took us on a small loop around the lake. It was beautiful out, the sun was out but yet there was a nice cool breeze. I stood up on the top deck for a few minutes before I went downstairs and laid down on the front of the boat as it cruised around Lake Lucerne. I’m not sure if I would recommend this optional, because I thought it was sort of short and wished we could have explored more of the lake. I wasn’t really satisfied with it to be honest. Each person on board was given a token for a free drink, beer, wine, soda, or water. At 16 Euros, or 25 CHF it was just a little expensive for what we got.

After the boat cruise, most people decided on doing the Swiss Fondue/Folk Show Contiki Optional, but I decided not to do that one. I just wasn’t interested in it at all. Plus, I was on a mission to find a wifi hotspot, which I did on my hour and a half free time. I headed over to Starbucks, and I was surprised that they limited me to only 30 minutes on the internet, and you had to buy something which makes it even more pointless. After my quick 30 minutes was up, I went outside to the tables that they have along the river and jumped on another wifi hotspot that was in unsecure in the area. It worked out well. I ended up getting a lot of stuff done and even made a few calls on Skype.

At 2:00PM I had to meet up with the group again so that we could head off to Mt. Pilatus a mountain in Lucerne that reaches over 7,000 ft. This is one of the Contiki Optionals that I was really looking forward to. I couldn’t wait to get to the top of Pilatus.

We hopped on the 4 person Gondolas which took us up to just about half way at a little over 3,000 ft. When you jump off, there is an adventure sport park and a toboggan course which was closed. There were also zip lines and other really cool things to do, but none of that was for us. We still had to take a 25-30 person Gondola up to the top of Mt. Pilatus.

When we arrived at the top of Pilatus it was pretty chilly. The temperature dropped at least 10 degrees from when we were at the bottom about 30 minutes prior. Everyone really enjoyed the views on the way up, and especially from the top of the Mountain. There were all of these stairs and platforms that you could climb to get even higher view points. The views were incredible and unfortunately while walking around taking photos at the top, my camera battery died and I had left my spare battery in my backpack on the bus. Oh well! I got some great photos, and footage prior to my battery dieing so it worked out fine.

After taking a few photos and videos I went down to the snack bar and ended up paying 12.50 CHF for a hot dog and bottle of diet coke. Yeah, quite expensive! Our tour manager had warned us that buying anything on the top of Mt. Pilatus would be very expensive, more expensive that Switzerland is in the first place. And, he sure was right!

Our group decided to take the last Cog Railway train down the mountain (5:30PM) instead of the gondolas. The only problem was that the temperature dropped big time before we left, and it got really cold and it was pretty much a white out at the top. We all moved into the waiting area, and gift shop to keep warm until our train came.

It was a really cool experience to be descending down Mt. Pilauts on the steepest Cog Railway in the world! The train basically goes straight down the mountain side. The views were really cool. I was so tired from such a long day that I ended up sleeping for the last 20 of the 45 minute descent down to the base of the mountain.

Once we got to the base of Pilatus it was pouring rain and I think it just made everyone even more tired. We headed back to the hotel for our Contiki Included dinner and I headed straight back to my room to relax. Overall today was a great day, mostly due to the Mt. Pilatus optional and the weather this morning was really nice here in Lucerne.

Overall I thought Lucerne, and Switzerland in general was simply beautiful. The city of Lucerne was so clean, so fresh, and the water is some of the cleanest water in Europe. You can drink from any fountain, any sink, even the toilets if you’d like. Well, I wouldn’t recommend that, but that is how clean the water is here! I hope to come back to Switzerland later in the summer, but we’ll see what happens. One down fall about Switzerland is that it’s pretty expensive compared to other major countries in Western Europe. Expensive, but AWESOME! If you get the chance to go to Switzerland, definitely do it! It’s worth the money…

Tomorrow morning we head off to Nice, France. Yep, back to France again! But this time we’ll be heading to the south of France where the French Riviera lies. It’s going to be a long bus ride and I’m told that once we arrive we’ll have about an hour before we head off to one of the most high class countries in the world, Monaco! Should be a great time!

Til’ next time…