Saturday, April 26 - Lucerne

Woke this morning around 8:00. Had breakfast at the hotel, eggs, ham, croissants, fruit, juice, very nice. The view from the dining room was beautiful. As soon as we finished we walked to the tourist info place to buy tickets for an excursion to the top of Mount Pilatus. We had to catch a bus to get there. Once we got off, we had to walk a ways uphill to the cable car station. (my tired legs!) We had a car all to ourselves. It was the longest cable car ride I've ever been on, about 30 minutes. The forests we passed over were just gorgeous. Eventually you get to a point where you have to change to a different kind of car. That one you had to stand up in and it could hold a lot of people. At one point all you could see was rock and it was like you could hit it when the car goes up and over and it and then every thing was white, this big valley full of snow. It was stunning. I figured we would be roped off from any areas with snow but I was wrong. It was everywhere! I did throw some at Troy but I missed. They had a man playing one of those long horns. I forget what they're called. We saw people climbing over the rail and taking off on snow shoes and even one man ran down a slope wearing a parachute and he sailed away. That was really cool. After that it was lunchtime and we went to the restaurant there. The food there was pretty good. Once we were done, it was time to head back down. They had 38 people packed in the car coming down. It was very tight. Troy said he was just glad no one had gas. Once we got off the bus back in Lucerne, we decided to walk to see this monument Troy had read about, the Dying Lion. So we found that and took pictures and rested a bit there. It was getting late and the town was very crowded because of some race. Everyone here either runs or rides a bike. We figured it would take a while to get to where we wanted to eat becaxuse of the crowds. We stopped to check out a meal on the way but they were closing. Come to find out, on Saturdays everythings shuts down. Stores close at 4:00. The kitchens in the restaurants close at 5:00 and if they are open, they are only serving drinks. We walked around looking for food until about 6:30, which is when we came back to the room. The hotel would still be serving until 9:30. We had to get dressed up to go down there but the restaurant was full, no tables. We took a menu back to the room and ordered from there. Troy had a steak he really enjoyed.

20413 steps walked
8.1 miles
1099 calories burned
2:53 hours walked