Swiss beauty!

Lucerne, Luzern. How every you want to spell it, it's very pretty town. Pretty small with a lot of Swiss flags, well everything has a white cross on a red background. And yup it's expensive. I knew that Switzerland and Norway were going to be quite pricey, but Switzerland, you are something else. I've done as the Swiss do, i ate pastries, don't ask me what was in it, I'd prefer not to know, but it was delicious. My hotel catch phrase is we have the best pizza in town, we'll see about that! Not the cheapest in town and not the dearest. But it was pretty good, not as good as mine or the pizza i had in London! And what's with not cutting them?! They were big and I exhaled them no problems! As vie said to a few friends, i have been really busqy trying to see as much as i can and sometimes i completely forget to eat. Not until i get back in the room does my stomach make one hell of a noise! I have lost a tiny bit if weight, but nothing alarming, my stomach isn't shrinking, drinking plenty of evain, yeah I know it's naive spelled backwards. It's cheap! 

The weather for my first day in Luzern (that's what the signs here say so ill go with that spelling) was pretty bloody grey and wet. So my PLAN! Well it was to see Mt Pilatus, but the weather had other plans. The great thing is the mountain has a webcam, so i could check if it was looking good...... The grey wall was back! 

So when god gives you lemons, make lemonade. The city/town is quite small, the focal point is the lake, funnily enough called Lake Luzern. The water is crystal clear, swans, duck, and even a few seagulls. There are plenty of churches, flags and on the weekend people. I managed to walk around the majority of the town on Friday, i didn't take a map, just pointed in a direction and go from there. Not many signs are in English, and Switzerland has three languages, all depending on how close you are to the neighboring country. So they speak German, French and Italian (60%, 30%, 10%). Now that would be a great place for a child to be raised in, three languages and they'd learn English at school as well! I have learnt a key phrase in German, sprechen sie englisch?! Haha and thankfully most of them say yes! I love when you get people trying to sell you something, i use the line.....English? Nein. They can they just don't want to waste their time, foreigners aren't their target market. So i got some decent photographs with the weather, again it was quite good to me once i got out and down to the streets, light to no rain. I even found this battlements wall they have in the city. I thought it'd be cool to walk around it, it's no great wall of china. There are information boards everywhere but it's all in German. Luzern is a much better signed and street mapped area than Innsbruck was that's for sure. So the battlements wall, walking along it and i was hoping that there was on of the towers open, but didn't like my chances. First one nope, second one, mmm no door, wait a minute, there was a door open, score! It was a tunnel that goes under the wall and then up to the tower. Well there was a heap of stair welcoming me when i got there, steep to. Strange to see no one else was up the top. Took some nice photos of the city from above, got my oxygen ready for the decent :-P As i get half way down a worker is heading up, finds me and then tells me no one is supposed to be up here, ha! Apparently they close the wall off to the locals/tourists in winter, he had opened it, went back to his van to get something and i managed to get in and up without him knowing! SCORE! He asked me to please close the door on the way out, so he doesn't get any more visitors. Fine by me, always love an exclusive. Well winter exclusive. As i have said previously, everything happens for a reason, if i went up to Mt Pilatus, or even if I didn't arrive when that door was open, i would have missed the chance to go up there and see the 'grey' beauty of Luzern from above. 

Since I'm getting old and i want to get some night shots of Luzern since i knew what was around and where the cool landmarks were. I needed a nap! It's the age thing! It was a beautiful clear night, stars shining, the moon was on the horizon and the forecast for tomorrow was perfect weather, bring on Mt Pilatus! The shots came out pretty good, not my best night work, but the best of what the city could give me. One thing I've noticed in Luzern is it seems a national pastime to smoke, from the teenagers to the very old. So many people. The women have beautiful eyes but most of them smoke! Most of the population has strong features, and don't be alarmed the kids over here fuss with their hair just as much as ours! Speaking of hair, i decided to cut corners with my genes and shave my head. I don't know what number, 6mm is what is says on my beard trimmer comb. I wont be seeing anyone i know for about 3 weeks, so if it looks shite, it will grow back. But it looks better than expected. And i'm not over here to experience the european female culture *wink* *wink* so it prepares me mentally for the balding years ahead. I know i'm going bald, hell both my granddads were bald and my Nan is going that way too, so my chances were slim to nothing. So now I'm a handsome fuzz ball! Still got the beard though.

Saturday, first thing, open the curtains, wow perfect blue skies. Run down stairs and have some breakfast, then get ready to hit the mountain (haha don't have to do my hair) so it's going to be train to Alpnestad, cogwheel up to Pilatus, cable car to Kriens, then bus from Kriens back to Luzern. The mountain has a few legends, one about a young man falling into a cave where dragons were hibernating, they didn't mind his presence and he had no food so he copied them by licking the rock that they lick. When winter ended they took off and helped him get out of the cave. Roughly. The other legend is that the mountain had heavy thunderstorms and flooding and came to the conclusion that it was haunted by something supernatural. Towns people and visitors were forbidden on the mountain. They believed every Good Friday, Pontuis Pilate former roman emperor would come down to the lake to wash the blood off his hands. The towns people went to the mountain and confronted the supernatural beings, nothing happened so they believed from their actions the curse had been lifted!    

I grabbed the Go Pro and chucked it on the side of the cogwheel railway (pilatus bahn)  It's the first time I've used it properly and you will soon know if it was a success or gobshite! Apparently it is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world?! My idea was to have the video camera out at the level of the horizon and just show the scenery dropping away and the intense angle we are going up. I probably chose the wrong side to put the camera, but i knew closer to the summit i would get a great shot of the mass of mountains from up high. The other people on the cogwheel were intrigued by what i was doing. And it was a great test. That suction cup mount worked perfectly! So i think it will be in it's element when i drive the Nurburgring on the 29th of November! The summit was a perfect view, the weather was perfect too! You'll see the photos and understand just how gorgeous Mt Pilatus and the surrounding area is. The cable car was a very relaxing and private way to decend back down to the town of Kriens. I could have been sitting there completely naked on the way down, no one would have known or could have done anything about it! But alas i didn't!

After getting back to my hotel, grab my bags and head to the next destination, Zermatt and the famous Matterhorn. The Simpsons took it off with the Murderhorn, homer tried to climb it using power sauce bars. But you'll know the Matterhorn from your dangerous Swiss chocolate Toblerone, the logo is that of the Matterhorn. And can you get toblerone in zermatt? You sure can, and in so many different ways! Actually my hotel had a mini toblerone on my pillow. Skiing 300 days of the year. I won't be, i do enjoy skiing, but i have many more weeks of travelling to do. Try and organise a helicopter flight tomorrow, so fingers crossed! If not cable car it up and get some great shots of an international landmark, and on the other side of the Matterhorn is.....Italy! And monday lunch time I'll be there!  

I still wake up every morning and can't believe I'm here!