Having been to Switzerland before, we knew what to expect. The best part? The airport, train station, tram station, bus station, supermarket and stores are all at the same place! It's huge and busy. And the hotel we like to stay at, Hyatt Regency Zurich, is literally across the street. Once you've gotten your luggage from the airport, it's a 10 minute walk at most, to the hotel lobby. It's the most convenient airport/train station/hotel you will ever find.
We checked in and found out we were upgraded to a suite:
We dropped our luggage off and were headed to downtown Zurich to explore and take a walking tour.
The next day had rain all day in the forecast. That was a bummer as we were headed up to the top of a mountain. We packed our rain jackets and headed out early to take a train to Stans with our destination being the Stanserhorn mountain. Travelling to the top of Stanserhorn mountain, started in 1893 with a series of 3 different electric mountain funicular trains. These were the first electrically powered mountain trains in the world and continued to operate until 1970. In 1970, lightning hit the top section's cable that ran the train, which then started a fire and destroyed a hotel at the top as well as the powerhouse for the train. A new cable car gondola was built and opened in 1975 that replaced the middle and top trains, but the original bottom train still remained in operation, and still is in operation today.
In 2010, the cable car system was upgraded to the CabriO cableway, which is what is there now. It's the world's only double deck cable car, and the top deck is open - no roof and it opened in 2012.
From the Stans train station, it was a short 10 minute walk to the mountain train station. We were a little worried as it was cloudy and overcast and we hoped we would still get some good views at the top of Stanserhorn.........
This is the original funicular railway that's been running since 1893. A funicular railway is a cable railway that connect two cars with a continuous cable. When one car goes down, the other car goes up, powered by an electric wheel at the top that the cable goes around. This system has been used since the 15th century and mostly used on very steep mountain slopes, so gravity can help pull the car going up, while the car going down is slowed down. Switzerland and Italy have a lot of these funicular railways
When you pass the other car, you know you are at the very middle
At the top of the funicular, we got off and immediately got on the cable car to go the rest of the way up
Of course we had to ride on the top deck in the open air - nowhere else in the world could we do that. The views, even with the clouds, was magical and unlike anywhere else.....except in other places we've been to in Switzerland. Photos don't even come close to showing you how amazing and magical this country is
These are the "high mountain pastures" and they had cows, with bells on, wander all over. We could hear the bells as we were riding up
Here are some videos.....yep....everyone was taking pics:
Once off the cable car, there is a short 15 minute hike to the peak where the views are different in every direction. And with the clouds changing and the sun even coming through, the views changed every minute
VIDEOS:
The peaks sits at an elevation of 6,227 feet and the view includes 61 miles of Swiss Alps and 10 Swiss lakes
We then hiked a short loop back to the cable car station - about a mile and half and it was amazing
When we got back to the gondola station to go down, the clouds returned, but the entire time we were up there, the sun poked through and gave us magical views
We took the gondola back down, the old funicular back down and were headed to Lucerne. Instead of taking the normal train, we opted for a boat ride on Lake Lucerne.
The boat only went once every few hours so had some time to wait - about 45 minutes. I found this old small fortress just behind some trees that you could go in
Stans and Stanserhorn are in the mid-right of this drawing. Mt Rigi - directly across the lake is where we went last time we were here
After about a 45 minute boat ride, we arrived in Lucerne. Lucerne is the most populated city in central Switzerland with about 82,000 people and 220,000 in the urban areas. Lucerne is full of tourists. Packed. Most of them go to see the Chapel Bridge, a wooden covered bridge over a river, which was built in the 14th century.
It's currently the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, and the world's oldest truss bridge. The bridge contains original paintings dating back to the 17th century. They are painted inside the bridge, in triangles and depict different scenes of Lucerne's history. In 1993 however, the bridge suffered from a fire which destroyed or damaged many of the paintings. About a 1/3 of the paintings survived the fire and are still visible today.
We then went to some cathedrals which did not disappoint
The only time we needed our rain jackets was heading back to the train station in Lucerne. It started to downpour so we quickly took cover on the bridge and waited it out for about 15 minutes.
VIDEO:
We headed back to Zurich on the train after a very filled day of adventures
We wore them out 😁. That means it was a good day! We all slept good that night!
The next day we headed back to the train station and headed to Meiringen and then to Aareschlucht or Aare Gorge.
There is a section of limestone rock where the river has cut a gorge through for the past 10,000 years when the ice age melted and the water from the melted ice carved out this gorge.
In 1889 a wooden cantilevered walkway was built along the gorge for tourists to walk on and take in this natural wonder.
This wasn't quite as spectacular as Caminito del Rey in Malaga Spain, (which was incredible), but this was still an amazing site and we loved it. The walk through the gorge takes about 45 minutes.
We had to change trains, and this indoor bike rack was at the train station - we saw similar bike "parking" at other train stations too
The train ride is part of the destination offering views like no other
The train stopped at one place and this was the view:
This one is amazing!
Waterfalls like this were everywhere - not a very good pic though taken through the train's dirty window
Once we arrived, we had to then get on a bus for about a 10 minute ride. I knew where we were supposed to get off, and pushed the button, but the driver didn't stop. Instead, he dropped us off about a mile away, down the mountain. The road back up was very curvy, and had NO walking space, no shoulder, no where we could safely walk without being in traffic. So we went off-roading and spotted some deer trails through the meadows leading right up to where we needed to be
The walk back up wasn't too bad, and offered amazing valley views
We finally made it!
It had rained earlier in the day and the day before, so the water was not blue or clear like it normally is. It didn't rain on us, but there was lots of drips of water coming out from the rocks above us so we were glad we had our rainjackets.
Here is a photo I found online the way it normally looks:
But with the recent rains, we didn't have blue water, but we had LOTS of water rushing down. It was so loud!
Here are some videos:
This part where the gorge narrowed was the loudest as all the water was being funneled into a small area - you couldn't even talk to someone else near you it was so loud
Nearby, is the Reichenbach waterfall, with a drop height of 820 feet had so much water flowing down. We knew it was close, and the employee we asked said it was just down the road. Well, we walked and walked, saw the train we should have taken, and after about 45 minutes of walking, we finally arrived. You could hike up to the falls or take the funicular - which we did.
We were glad we had our rain coats as the mist coming off the falls would have gotten us all wet. Now these falls were LOUD!
VIDEO:
Ummm.....this is a little dangerous. These stairs were very steep, and anyone could trip and fall. And if you managed to fall between the gate and the train at the bottom, you won't stop falling.. ever. bye bye.
We then took the train to Interlaken, not far away. In English, Interlaken means "between two lakes" and looking on a map, you know why the city is named Interlaken.
The town sits right between two large lakes. Around each lake are small villages you can take a train or boat to. We opted for an hour ride on a still operating steam boat built in 1914 on Lake Brienz - the lake on the left. It was relaxing and pretty chill.
VIDEO:
In this one, I was just videoing the shoreline and this giant waterfall was right there! It was roaring!
You can watch the gearbox that runs the paddlewheel
We got off the boat in Iseltwald, one of the many small villages around the lake and walked around the very small village, found some geocaches and then caught the next boat to continue our journey. Iseltwald has a huge population of 415.
This vending machine was outside a farm - you could buy eggs, sausage and cheese. AND there was a geocache here!
We made it back to Interlaken where we took the train back to Zurich and slept well again. We only needed our rain jackets for the dripping water from the rocks in the gorge.
Tomorrow will be a train ride to Germany, saying goodbye to Switzerland.
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