Europe

After a good night’s sleep, we headed downstairs to enjoy a beautiful breakfast.

After breakfast, we went back upstairs to our room to get organised for the day.

We decided that our first activity for the day would be a trip to Lucerne. Rather than drive, we opted to take the ferry. The hotel arranged for a car to drive us down to the ferry stop, where we had a few minutes to enjoy the scenery before the ferry arrived.

We boarded the ferry just after 10:30 am, and settled in for the trip to Lucerne. We got a lovely view of our hotel on the way past.

The stops along the way were all very pretty.

We arrived in Lucerne just before midday, and just as it started to rain. We disembarked and put on our rain jackets before venturing out from under cover. Fortunately, the rain didn’t last long. We left the wharf and walked into the Old Town, via the Chapel Bridge.

The Chapel Bridge was built in the mid-14th century, but the adjoining water tower was built in the late 13th century. In 1993, a fire destroyed around two thirds of the bridge and 86 of the 111 unique 17th-century triangular paintings that decorated the bridge rafters. The damaged sections of the bridge were rebuilt quickly and the bridge reopened in 1994.

We enjoyed walking around the Old Town. The buildings were quite beautiful and very well preserved.

Next, we walked to the Musegg Wall. The wall and its towers are part of the historic fortifications around the Old Town. The walk up to the wall was very steep but nowhere near as steep as the stairs inside the tower we climbed to get onto the top of the wall!

From the Musegg Wall, we zig-zagged west across the city for about a kilometre to the Lion Monument. The Lion Monument is a large stone sculpture commemorating the Swiss Guards who died defending King Louis XVI during the storming of the Tuileries Palace during the French Revolution. It is a set behind a pond in a beautiful garden and is a very moving sight. Mark Twain remarked that it was “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world”. Having now visited it, we understand why.

We then headed back toward the livelier part of the Old Town, where were drawn into one of the many beautiful chocolate shops.

After our chocolate shopping, we walked back to the Seebrücke, an historic wooden bridge that spans the Reuss River.

We crossed the bridge to visit the Jesuit Church. This church was built in 1666-1667, and was the first major Baroque-style religious building in Switzerland.

We left the church and took a leisurely stroll back to the ferry dock, taking in the beautiful Old Town scenery along the way.

Only minutes before we managed to board the ferry, and with no warning, heavy rain started to fall. We managed to make a dash for the ferry and not get completely drenched.

We had a nice ride back on the ferry, admiring more of the beautiful scenery along Lake Lucerne.

We arrived back in Vitznau at around 4:15pm, just in time to connect with the cog railway train to the top of Mount Rigi, also known as “Queen of the Mountains”.

The Mount Rigi cog railway was Europe’s first mountain railway. It opened on May 21, 1871. It was built by Swiss engineer Niklaus Riggenbach, who invented and patented the rack-and-pinion system that allows trains to safely climb steep gradients (and this railway has some very steep gradients!).

The 40-minute ride up Mount Rigi showcased stunning Swiss mountain views. We alighted at the top, at the Rigi Kulm station.

Our plan was to just take a quick look around and then board the same train, which stays in the station for about 12 minutes, for the return journey. But the scenery was so beautiful, that we decided to stay longer.

We were so taken by the incredibly beautiful scenery, that we decided that we’d descend part of the way on foot. So we set off on the walking track down the mountain.

As we walked down the mountain, we could hear the enchanting ringing of cowbells across the mountain, which made it seem about as Swiss as it could get. But, when we got to Rigi Staffel, it got even more quintessentially Swiss, with a group of locals playing their alphorns.

When they finished on their alphorns, they formed a choir and sang some beautiful, traditional Swiss songs.

After being enthralled with the local music, we walked around the area a little more to take in some of the incredible scenery.

From Rigi Staffel, we continued on down the path.

Some sections of the path had cowbells attached to the wire railing, which was very cute.

We stopped many times on the way down to look at the many different types of beautiful flowers that grew along the path.

We weren’t sure how far down we were going to walk, but we kept going since we were still feeling pretty energetic.

The towns along the way were very pretty.

As we passed by Rigi Kaltbad-First, we could hear the sound of cowbells getting louder and louder. When we rounded the next bend, we came across a group of cows, munching on the grass, all while collectively playing a beautiful and melodic tune as they swished their bells around. It seemed like the perfect Swiss scene!

By this stage, it was now after 7:00 pm, and our legs were letting us know that it was probably time to get back on the train. We’d descended about 3km at this point, and since we had not long passed the Rigi Kaltbad-First station, we walked back up the hill to wait there a few minutes for the next train.

We had a lovely ride down the mountain, taking in the beautiful views all the way to the station at Vitznau.

After we got off the train, we walked back past the very pretty ferry station and then along the main street of Vitznau to the hotel.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was nearly 8:00 pm, so we decided to head straight to The Grill, one of the Park Hotel’s fabulous restaurants. While our table was being prepared, we relaxed in the hotel’s beautiful garden.

We enjoyed a magnificent dinner, sitting outside, right on the shore of Lake Lucerne.

And while we enjoyed dinner, we watched a beautiful sunset over the lake.

We opted to skip dessert and, just after 9:30 pm, we headed back to our room. But while we didn’t have dessert, we did enjoy some of the passion fruit popcorn in our room that we had purchased earlier in the day in Lucerne.

After a pretty big day on our feet, we ran a hot bath to ease our sore muscles, before rolling into bed.

We are planning on a slow day tomorrow, probably just enjoying the hotel and surrounds.