Saturday 7 November 2009

Luzern and Lake Geneva

My Switzerland first destination was Luzern. We took a ferry from Friedrichshafen to Romanshorn and transited for 15 minutes before getting on the Pre-Alpine Express Train. The journey took about 2 hours and 46 minutes passing through St. Gallen, Rapperswill, Arth-Goldau and finally arriving in Luzern or also known as Lucerne.

Upon arrival in Luzern, we make our way to the Tourist Info Centre. We found an interesting excursion at the Mt Pilatus, located about 10 KM from the Luzern. Guess what we took a slow ferry ride across Lake Luzern and arrived at the foot of the Mount, Alpnachstad. We rode on the Steepest Cog-wheel  Train in the world with 48% Gradient in order to get to the top of Mt Pilatus. Amazing, isn’t it!?
Mt Pilatus Cold but Cool!! Yin Ling, Yilin and I on top of Mt Pilatus
It was unfortunate for the three of us due to the bad weather on top of the Mt Pilatus. As you can see in the picture above, it was foggy up there. Too Bad :(. Next, we checked in to a  Korean hostel, Minbak. My favourite hostel of all.
IMGP5036  I highly recommend this hostel to anyone who is planning to stay in Luzern. This hostel offers dorm systems and separated male and female apart. It is equipped with free desktop + Internet and also wireless for laptop. In addition, you will have Korean breakfast every morning :D my favourite :P
The next morning, we toured around Luzern Old town. There was a farmers festival or something on that day and we were so lucky to experience such interesting festival. Enough for Luzern, I should not tell too much as for you travelers to discover by yourself.
Moving to the west of Switzerland, we took The Golden Pass Line Express to Montruex via Interlaken.
The Golden Pass Line On board heading to Montreux, I met a woman (the mother of a just-married-son) and chatted quite a bit before she took off at one of the station right before Montreux. It was really good to chat with the friendly locals. Upon arrival in Montreux, Yin Ling and Yi Lin went to Migros( something like Sainsbury in the UK) to get some food and one of them was a bottle of red wine. We went to the lake shore and sat down, enjoying the tranquility of such beautiful sunset. It was my first time seeing such calm and pleasant sunset.
Wine + Sunset = Perfect Tranquility of Sunset Lastly, we head back to Interlaken and looked for our hostel. Guess what we arrived in Interlaken West station at 0000hr. Wow!! Tired and quickly checked into the hostel and Sleep!!! ZZZZzzz
NEXT:  Jungfraujoch