WEATHER: Beautiful day again – I’d have to say 25C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: The view from Mt Stanserhorn
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Nearly missing the bus this morning
BUYS OF THE DAY: My Swiss Army knife in Switzerland 40EUR
WORD OF THE DAY: - It’s good to be alive
By the time ChelC and I got to bed, I think it was around 4am – I set my alarm for 6am as we had a breakfast call for 7am, and a coach departure of 7.30am. Well you can imagine our SHOCK when I woke up at 7.38am!!!! I don’t even know what prompted me to even wake up, but my first thought was that we had missed the bus, we have been left in Florence and will need to fly to catch up with the group! All this in my micro-second before turning to the snoring ChelC to break the news top her. So when she woke she was in a flap as well, but managed to tell me that the time had moved to 7.50am. We had 12 minutes to pack an overnight bag, re-pack the backpacks and get our butts down stairs! I tell you now; you have not seen 2 people move so fast in your life. We had all our stuff strewn from one end of the room to the other as well, of course, so no time for showers or teeth brushing, we were actually 3 minutes late getting downstairs, but the bags were still getting loaded, so technically we made it with some small time to spare, but it was a close shave. ChelC was beside herself that we would miss the coach! To top it off I am sure that we were still drunk, so the good old drunk pack has reared its head again. I did a micro second scan on the way out, so hopefully we haven’t left anything. Goodness knows what I have packed for my overnight bag for Switzerland, but as long as I have clean underwear, I will make do with what I have.
Needless to say, I slept for the whole first section of the trip. The first auto grill we stopped at I had some pizza and coke and that seemed to pep me up and recharge my batteries. I looked like death warmed up, but I certainly felt better than what I looked!!
Good-bye to Italy and hello to beautiful Switzerland. If you picture Switzerland to have tall snow-capped mountains, lots of green grass, cows grazing and lakes, then you have the right picture. It was just stunning driving through this beautiful country. Our first stop was at Mt Stanzerhorn which is 1900m high, and makes it into the blogs highest elevations list so far on the trip. Not the tallest as Mt Etna was 3000m+, but it is still pretty high!!!!!! We caught a train 15 minutes half way up the mountain and then we switched to a cable car for the rest of the trip up that took another 15 minutes. Once at the top the view was breathe taking! It really is hard to describe the view we had, but it was just magic. They had a viewing platform that was made from see through steel, so it did feel like we were walking on air, it sounds corny I know but it was awesome!
From here we were only 15 minutes from the beautiful town of Lucerne where we were staying for the night. As it is Sunday all the shops were closed and not many people around, but there is a preferred shop of Contiki, so they opened and everyone got to check-out the Swiss watches, Swiss army knives and all things Swiss could be bought from these shops. I ended up buying a Swiss army knife. I do have one, well a cheap version that I bought from Anaconda before I left, but if I am in Switzerland I need something Swiss right? There were like 45 to choose from, so I ended up with a mid-size one that had a screw driver, you just never know when you need one of those right? Some people bought watches and from what I could make out the knives were a popular choice as well as the Swiss chocolates.
Our hotel for the night was a converted jail. It was built in 1862 and became the first prison hotel in Switzerland in 1999. There were still prisoners locked up in the prison till 1998. The Jailhotel has 56 rooms and we stayed in the ‘Most Wanted’ room category, but there is a lower category called the ‘Unplugged’ rooms which are original cells, equipped with only a sink and a toilet inside, their showers are located across the corridor. It was a pretty cool place to stop for the night.
We then headed down to the Lake Lucerne for a cruise. The cruise departed at 8pm, and I really love this time of day for photos. I did an 8pm flight on the London Eye and the sunset and the colour of the sky makes for great photos and when you get back to snap some night time shots is a bonus. I didn’t bring my tripod, so these didn’t turn out so great, but the city of Lucerne is a stunning place.
After checking out the Lion Monument in the dark (they had switched the lights off at 10pm) and stopping for one beer in a local pub (no day is complete now without some form of alcohol) it was back to my cell for the night and a goodnight’s rest. We are off to Paris for the next 2 nights, with the farewell dinner on the last night, so I am picturing a very large night then. Half of the coach is staying in Paris, the rest of us are heading back to London Town, so we may get to spread out a little on the way back.
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