Yup, we’ve been here in Switzerland 5 months now and we haven’t scaled any mountain yet. So last Saturday, we decided to go up Mount Pilatu.

We started out on a 2hr train ride to Luzern.

Luzern is a big city in Switzerland, much like Zurich.

and a city of cyclists, like many Switzerland towns and cities.

Once we exited from the train station, we saw a street market by the old bridge with peddlers selling fruit, flowers, breads and more…

After a short bus ride and a hike, we arrived at the cable car station to begin our ascent to Mount Pilatus.

As we began our ascent, we got a good view of the city of Luzern.

We saw a few hikers hiking up the mountain but check out this guy… it’s almost a 45degrees slope!!

Visibility was already getting poor by this stage and I could only manage a couple of shots… which was a pity because I think on a clear day, I would be able to take a picture of Lake Luzern below.

After the guys had their fun and we walked around a bit, it was time to get on the gondola to the peak.

And so, after another 5mins in the gondola, we arrived at the peak of Mount Pilatus.

Weird that there deck chairs… but here are the kids having some fun.

And Jon had his own fun too, a self-service beer tap for 3CHF per glass.

After lunch and a short walk around, it was time to leave. By the time we were at the peak, visibility was only about 3 metres and it started drizzling as well so I couldn’t capture any pictures of the view from the mountain.   We took the cog train down the mountain.. the world’s steepest cog railway train by the way.

And then on a boat across Lake Luzern back to the Luzern Bahnhof.

The boat ride took us 1.5hrs!! And by the time we got home, it was 8pm and we were all bushed. It was fun though… hopefully we get to visit a snow-capped mountain next. And as usual, I want to leave you with some favourite pictures of the day.

Hope you enjoyed this (picture-intensive) post. Have a great week ahead!

The most demanding work day of my life.

I had many days in my work life where I just want to call it quits but none can match yesterday. First, I had to reach work at seven which isn’t that bad. Then we hopped onto a bus and endured 2 1/2 hours of peak hour traffic to arrive at Luzern. I was informed that it’s going to be just a hike, like a walk in the park. Having served my basic military training and gone through the 24 km road march with full SBO and helmet, I thought that it is going to be easy. But five minutes into the hike, I was huffing and puffing and already thinking of just waiting in the car. Anyway, I don’t know how I made it but I did it. 2132 metres, 7000 ft above sea level – to the top of Mount Pilatus.

Hmmm… looks easy so far right???

WRONG… that was what WE THOUGHT!!!

By this time, we were just GLAD to make it!!

More pictures here.

p/s: Joey, Brenda and Terence, you better start getting into shape because we are going “hiking” when you come.