Living it UP in Lucerne

Jake on the train

We have been wanting to do an overnight trip to Lucerne and finally got to go on Thursday, and I have to say, it is my new favorite place! Thanks to my dear friend Elizabeth, we stayed in an amazing hotel that she recommended, the Palace, on Lake Lucerne. The view from our room was the best I've ever seen in my life! It was such a lovely hotel, and now I'm kicking myself for not taking more pics of it, but I was too mesmerized by the amazing mountain skyline splashed across the water! Lucerne is only 45 minutes from Zurich, and Jake loved being on his first long train ride. He sings a victory chant after going through each tunnel, which is hilarious. It goes something like "All done with the tunnel, I made it!" Once we got checked in at the Palace, we strolled along the lake towards town, while Jake ran after ducks but stayed clear of the menacing swans! We arrived at the famous wooden bridge, and then walked through the charming old town area, paved with cobblestone roads and full of shops. Lucerne is smaller and slower paced than Zurich, and it has a wonderful quaintness that we fell in love with. We ate dinner at a really nice and super delicious outdoor restaurant at the Montana Art Deco Hotel, called Scala, which had the most breathtaking views ever! 

A shot from our balcony

Old Wooden Bridge

Scala Restaurant, Overlooking Lake Lucerne

Gorgeous view from our hotel room!

We woke up on Friday to a rejuvenated Jake jumping in between us, excitedly saying "Hey guys, c'mon, wake up!" Of course, he is particularly good at this on mornings when we really want to sleep in and relax! We were moving pretty slow, but luckily he entertained himself by climbing in and out of the closet and hiding, and pretending to call my dad repeatedly on the phone! We decided to do an excursion called the Golden Round Trip, which involves taking a boat across Lake Lucerne to Alpnachstad, going up the majestic Mt. Pilatus on the cogwheel railway, coming down on the panorama gondolas, and then taking a bus back to Lucerne. The boat ride was sensational, the pics really don't do the views any justice at all! Everywhere we looked, it was lush green amongst immense mountains and cliffs, offset by sparkling blue-green water that looked clean enough to drink! Michael and I could have stayed on that boat all day long just gawking at the waterfront and cliff side homes, but Jakey was getting stir crazy and we had to move on to part two, getting UP the mountain.

Family pic on the boat

Daddy & Jake on Lake Lucerne

He sat down here and asked me to take a picture of him!

Jake'd had enough pictures by now, such a drama king!

Too sweet

Mighty Mt Pilatus from the boat

A better one with mom

To go UP Mt. Pilatus, we rode the Pilatus Railway, sort of like a trolley car, called a cogwheel railway. Let me just stop to explain that I normally don't do things like this, because I'm not good with heights in this type of setting. I really don't know what delusion I was in when I let the concierge cheerfully convince me that this was the right choice for us! I didn't ask how high it was or what the trip UP was like, which looking back, I definitely should have! And I didn't give serious consideration to the thought of having to take a glass gondola down the other side of the mountain once we got UP there! I mean, I must have been high on the view because this was such a bad mistake on my part! The trolley ride UP was going fine until we cleared the tree line...then I started sweating, my knees got weak even though I was already sitting, and I felt my face flush. My stomach was in knots and my heart was racing out of my chest. Needless to say, we had surpassed my height threshold! I did not want to alarm Jake, so I just started taking deep breaths with my eyes shut while Michael rubbed my leg. I was trying not to go into a full on panic attack, but this trolley car was literally crawling along the edge of a sheer drop off, thousands of feet down! I was so close to collapsing when we got off at the top, but again, I was trying not to scare Jake, so I pushed myself to just get inside the viewing area, and then silent tears started falling. Michael and I both had headaches, I guess because the air was so thin up there. I told him what an idiot I was for thinking I could handle it, and that we would have to exchange our gondola tickets for trolley tickets to get down, because I knew the gondola would have been so much worse for me-- I can just imagine myself in the fetal position on the floor of the glass gondola, with Jake thinking I was playing peek-a-boo instead of losing my mind!

Pilatus Cogwheel Railway

Going up the mountain, pre-panic

Up, up and up we go

Beautiful cross on the mountainside

Luckily it was no problem to exchange our tickets, and after Michael got some awesome panoramic photos, we got back on the Pilatus Bahn

One of Michael's panoramic shots

Kisses for mommy on the way down the mountain

Michael bought Jake a cute Pilatus dragon t-shirt to commemorate this trek...I sort of think I deserved one too! In late medieval times there was said to be a dragon living on the mountain, hence the reason for it being the mascot...Okay everyone, are you ready for the big kicker that made my stomach hurt from laughing so hard earlier tonight?!? In preparation to write this blog post, I googled Mt. Pilatus to see how high it is (6,982 ft), and I found out it has THE WORLD'S STEEPEST COGWHEEL RAILWAY!!!!!! Really concierge???? You didn't think that tiny tidbit was worth mentioning????? OMG!!!! I mean come on! No wonder I was flipping out!! If this were in America there would be signs everywhere bragging about being the world's highest cogwheel railway, but no, there was not a one! This is too hilarious, in a torturous kind of way. I guess at least I can say I did it! In my brief research, I also found out that Pilatus was named after a local legend which alleges that Pontius Pilate was buried there, which I found really fascinating and totally made me think of my Dad's mom and how much she would appreciate that. The world's steepest??? Sheesh!!! I still cannot believe we did this!! From the bottom of the mountain, we took a short 20 minute ride on a city train back to the main station in Lucerne, where we had stored our bag. After grabbing some food, we climbed onto the train heading to Zurich. I was already missing our beautiful lakefront room when we sat down, which is precisely when we discussed going back again before we head home to Texas!

Beautiful mountain pic headed UP

From the cogwheel train

I highly recommend Lucerne to anyone traveling to Switzerland, and the Palace Hotel is superb! It's a five star luxury hotel and the staff were so friendly and helpful, I did not want to leave! Some things we didn't have time to see were the lion warrior monument, and a glacier on Mt. Titlus, which are supposed to be really worthwhile. Although, we most certainly will not be seeing Mt. Titlus from anywhere but the ground, haha! I would really love to explore the shops and boutiques more and find another yummy restaurant. And while on the boat, we spotted some pristine looking parks just down from the Palace, so next time we can let Jake to kick a ball around. There was a neat pool on the lake right in front of our hotel, and hopefully if we go back it will be warm enough to swim, as this time it was just too chilly. There was a Casino next door to us as well, which looked like fun.

Palace Hotel

This swan made Jake look small, we couldn't believe how big it was!

Waterfront at our hotel

Lucerne is so idyllic and I will never forget our first time there. I can't wait to go back...we'll just do everything from the ground next time, hehe! I LOVE LUCERNE! Going to bed still giggling about the irony of Pilatus. Thank you God for this gorgeous city and for helping me survive the world's steepest cogwheel railway, AMEN!!