The sleep we got last night was both much better, and much longer than what we got on the airplane, and we were happy about that. We both thought the room was a little stuffy without air conditioning, but not too bad. I woke up about 6:30 AM and tried to make some coffee with the little automated pod type coffee machine, similar to a Keurig. I was not sure which type of coffee I was trying to make, none of the small pods were labeled, only color coded. There was one that was grey, and I started with it first, oops, it was tea. Then I tried a small brown one, but it would not go into the machine correctly. I sort of manually fed it into the slot, and when I punctured it, cream came out, oops, wrong again and no wonder it did not fit correctly into the machine. Then I tried a blue one, and it finally made a good tasting cup of coffee. I went ahead and drank that while I finished yesterday’s blog post.
Of course, for anyone who has ever read about our trips, you already know that I usually get up early and Stephanie sleeps in. That was also the case for today. I made another cup of coffee and had a sweet breakfast twist I picked up yesterday at the grocery for my breakfast. After a couple of bites, I found it was also filled with what looked like chocolate, but did not taste that chocolatey, but it was good none the less. I figured with 17,000 steps yesterday, a sugary dessert for breakfast today was OK.
I woke Stephanie up about 7:45 AM. Our plan for today was to take a train to Engelberg, south of Lucerne, to visit Mount Titlis. It is one of the higher peaks in the area, and there are several attractions to see at the top of the mountain, an ice cave, and Europe’s highest suspension bridge. The weather was a little bit cloudy this morning, so we knew it might not be the best day for a scenic mountain top visit, but tomorrow’s weather was forecast to be even cloudier and rainy.
We got ready and headed to the train station to catch the 9:10 AM train departure to Engelberg. We purchased round trip day passes called Passepartout which give us the ability to travel unlimited trips in certain zones around Lucerne. It was the cheapest option, and with our Half-Fare Swiss Cards, the total round trip cost for both of us was CHF 36.00. We got to the platform and boarded the train about 10 minutes early. This is a limited stop train that just runs between Lucerne and Engelberg, leaving hourly.
It was not terribly crowded, but crowded for Covid conditions, and we were just not yet accustomed to being in crowds. Most people complied with the mask mandate, but one woman took off her mask about 1/3 of the way there, and kept it off, there seems to always be one in the crowd who feels the need to break the rules.
When we got to Engelberg, I suddenly realized that we had not packed our CDC vaccine cards, nor any of the color copies I had made and laminated. We did have the copies on PDF files on my cell phone and we both had ID’s, so we decided to go with that. We had read online before the trip that proof of vaccination was required to purchase tickets. We got onto the shuttle bus for the short ride to the Titlus ticket office and purchased two tickets to the top, which are normally CHF 96.00 each, but with our half fare cards, it was CHF 96.00 total for both of us.
First Gondola Ride Up
We put on a little more clothes layers anticipating the colder temperatures at over 10,000 ft in elevation and headed to the first 6-Person Gondola that goes about half way to the top. There were not that many people here today, we were sure it was due to the marginal weather. They never asked for any type of vaccination proof when we purchased the tickets or before we boarded, maybe because so few people were here because of the marginal weather.
We enjoyed the ride up to the first transfer station, it was peaceful riding in the Gondola by ourselves, and we could take off our masks. The next leg up was in the same size Gondola, and once again we were by ourselves. This one took us about 80% of the way up. From there we got on a rotating cable car for the remainder of the way up to the top. It was already cloudy at this elevation, but we got glimpses of the mountain terrain on the way up through the clouds.
Rotating Cable Car
This rotating cable car looked like it could hold 50 people, but there were only about 15 people inside for the trip, all wearing masks. The car rotated one revolution on the way up to the top.
When we arrived at the highest station, we got off of the rotating car and headed into the station. There were five levels, and we took an elevator up to level 5 to look outside. It was not completely fogged in with clouds, but we could not see very far in the distance.
Stephanie In The Ice Cave
It was not terribly cold, about 35 degrees, and fairly calm, just cloudy. We took some pictures and then headed back inside to visit the ice cave. The ice cave was interesting, but not that exciting. It was nicely lit up with colored lights that changed over time.
After the ice cave, we headed to the suspension bridge. We had about 150 step to climb up to the top to get onto the bridge, and at over 10,000 feet in elevation, with sore legs from yesterday, and while wearing a mask that was required, it was a little exhausting. We walked across the narrow bridge, but it was unfortunate that the views were mostly obscured by low clouds.
There was an option to go back to the station from the far side of the suspension bridge, but that required us to walk across some fairly deep and slushy snow, and even with good shoes on, we were worried about slipping or getting the slushy snow into our shoes.
Steps Up To The Suspension Bridge
We opted to head back across the bridge and down all of the stairs and then back into the building, the same route we had done to get up to the bridge, just in reverse.
After a restroom break, we headed over to get back onto the rotating cable car for the ride down. We took the first gondola down to the next station and headed outside there for some photos. There were several hikers taking the trails up to this point from the bottom, and the signage said it was about 2 hours to hike up/down to this location.
Suspension Bridge walkway in the Clouds
We thought about hiking down….NOT. We got back onto the last gondola for the ride down, and once again we were riding by ourselves. At the bottom station, we exited and utilized the restroom before heading back to the train station. Since the shuttle bus only operates twice per hour, we decided to walk back to the train station instead of waiting for another 30 minutes for the next shuttle bus. It was only a 20 minute walk.
We arrived at the station and went to find the departure board, where we saw that the next train to Lucerne was departing in about 20 minutes. We walked around the town looking for some shops, but everything was closed for lunch, which was from 11:00 to 2:00 according to several signs we saw on the doors of the shops..
Building in Engelberg
This is fairly common in Europe unless you are at a really touristy town, and this was just a sleepy Swiss town at this time of year. We were sure it was different in the peak ski season since this is a popular ski destination in the wintertime.
The train arrived on time and we boarded. It was much less crowded than the morning train had been. We departed on time and did pick up quite a few passengers at the several stops as we headed back to Lucerne.
A Little More Sunshine in Lucerne
The weather in Lucerne was much better than at Mt. Titlis, it was partly cloudy and there was some sunshine at times. We elected to head back to the apartment and drop off our gear and just have some leftovers for our lunch since it was already almost 2:00 PM.
After lunch we headed back out to look for a store Stephanie wanted to find to look into purchasing a ceramic frog with a crown that she had seen several of at the reception desk. We had stopped in at the reception desk earlier on the way back to eat our lunch to pick up some additional coffee pods. The man at the reception desk gave us some directions on a city map to the store where the ones at the hotel had been purchased, but he did not know the name of the store.
We headed out to find the store, but were not sure if the store we did find was the correct one, they did not have any of the ceramic frogs, but it was the only gift store in the entire area. We actually walked around the entire block to make sure, but we could not even find another store anywhere close by that had similar items.
We headed back toward the Reuss River to find the small low head hydro plant called the Reusswehr Needle Dam. We found another Catholic Church on the way and went inside to visit. It was not as ornate as the nearby Jesuit Church, but was still nice to see.
The Reuss River
We found the Reusswehr Needle Dam and walked across a covered nearby wooden bridge similar to the Kapellbrücke, but much shorter, called the Spreuerbrücke. We sat on a bench by the dam and relaxed watching the river flow by and resting our weary legs. The only issue we had was with some flying bugs, which were all around the area next to the river here. They did not bite, but were in large swarms.
Next, we walked back toward the main shopping area nearby to our apartment and on the way, heard what sounded like a marching band playing music. We walked over to the small plaza where a small group was playing brass instruments as part of a wedding ceremony. It was the second wedding we had seen today while walking around, as well as what appeared to be a baby’s christening. I guess most wedding celebrations here are held on Friday’s instead of the USA’s traditional Saturday celebrations since we had seen several already today.
We headed to the grocery to pick up a few more items, and then walked around the shopping district. It is organized by shopping type, one area was all clothes stores, another was all watch stores, and another was all shoe stores.
It was starting to get cloudy, and the forecast had been for rain late in the afternoon, or early in the evening. We headed back to the apartment and made it just in time as a thunderstorm was approaching. It rained hard for about 45 minutes, but it helped to cool off our apartment, we had a nice rain cooled breeze coming through the windows. Then, the rain intensity lessened and became mostly a steady light rain.
We were planning on eating out tonight and when the rain subsided at about 7:00 PM, we headed out to find a restaurant with outside seating. Unfortunately, because of the rain, most outside areas were either closed, or severely reduced in seating capacity, just a few seats under a few large umbrellas. We looked at several menus and selected one we had seen initially before heading to the larger restaurants near the river.
This one had pizza and some pasta dishes, or so we thought. We took a seat outside under an umbrella, and the rain started falling once again. When we got the menu, and saw it was not the one we had looked at earlier on the outside of the building. We found out that this was not the pizza/pasta restaurant, it was downstairs, but they were both run by the same company. They took us downstairs, and we were able to find a seat under their large awning over the terrace that was on the river. Our table on the end was barely covered, but was dry, and because we were on the end, so there were not a lot of people around us.
Our Table on the Covered Terrace
We both selected a pasta type dish and a bottle of Rose wine. A bottle of wine here is super expensive in a restaurant, but seemed even worse by the glass. They only serve glasses of wine by the deciliter (the same volume as a milliliter), and it is a really small amount of wine for around CHF 7.00. For comparison, we usually use a rule of thumb that there are about 4 glasses of wine per bottle in most restaurants in the US. Here, at their glass serving size, there are 7.5 glasses of wine per 750 ml bottle.
Our Dinner Tonight
We enjoyed our dinner and wine and for the most part, the rain was over. Unfortunately, we could not get the attention of our waiter to pay the bill. Since we were on the far end away from the service area, we could not easily get them to see that we were ready to go. I needed to use the restroom, so on the way inside, I asked to get our check. By the time I got back to the table, Stephanie was paying using the credit card machine they brought to the table. This was her first experience paying the bill at a European restaurant, but she handled it with ease! The hardest part was remembering the PIN to enter into the machine.
We had to do an online search on our phones to see about tipping in Switzerland, and at most, tipping is only to round up to the nearest whole Franc. Here, tipping is already “included” in the staff pay, reflected in the pricing of the meals, so it is not generally required.
We headed back to the apartment calling it a night. We tried to watch some TV, but it is not that enjoyable when you do not understand the language. We were tired form walking a lot again today, about 17,900 steps according to Stephanie’s Galaxy Watch, 2,000 more steps than yesterday!
We discussed some options for tomorrow, we really did not have a plan, but the weather is supposed to be similar to today. Hopefully, it will not be a lot sunnier tomorrow since we used the forecast from yesterday to determine that the trip to Mt. Titlis would be better today than tomorrow, but we will see. We do hope for good weather tomorrow, but it is just a little kick in the teeth when the forecasts are not even close, and we choose the wrong day to go to a scenic mountain top!
At about 10:00 PM, we called it a night and headed to sleep.