Day 2 was a Tuesday and Beth was working. She woke me up on her way out. My original plan was to go to Grindelwald, but the forecast was in the 30s and 40s with rain and snow and the whole purpose of going there was for the amazing views, that I wouldn’t be able to see. Beth had recently taken her mom to Lucerne, she enjoyed it and the forecast was a little better that way. I researched a little and saw a short hike I could do. I slowly got ready. The forecast had a low of 50 and a high of 65. I was hoping to do a little hiking, but also would be on a train for an hour each way, so I struggled a bit on what to wear/pack. I packed and unpacked and repacked a few times.

I walked the 15 minutes to the train station, then got on the train to Lucerne. Right across from the train station in Lucerne is a boat that takes you to Vitznau (and other places on Lake Lucerne. As I walked out of the station, the boat was boarding. I walked right on. I was a little chilly outside the boat as it was still cool and the wind was going. It made me a bit nervous that I may have chosen poorly on my clothes for the day. I was glad I had decided to wear jeans for the way there, but wondered if I should have brought my puffy. Views from the boat:

I disembarked at Vitznau and as I did, the cog train to the top of the mountain was boarding. I had just enough time to walk into the little shop and grab a pretzel sandwich and a coke before getting on the cog train. Views from the cog:

I got off the train at the Kaltbad First stop, because I had read about a short walk to the Chänzeli with great views. I briefly stopped into the resort to use the restroom, then started off on the trail.

Oddly the signs all say time and not distance. Which is super weird given that people don’t all walk the same speed. That aside, the trails are all incredibly well marked and very clear where you’re going/where you need to go. First you come to the Felskapelle chapel and then oddly a mini golf course.

The walk to the Chanzeli had loads of flowers and also signs letting you know what the flowers were!

There were also COWS!

The one on the right kept watching me as I walked by. Note it’s the one on the left in the leftmost photo and as I came closer, it kept following me. I was briefly concerned the fence wouldn’t exactly hold it back if it came after me. They all wear bells and it was so cool to hear the sound of bells ringing everywhere.

There were benches sprinkled along the route, looking out over the views.

Then I got to the Chanzeli viewing platform.

The clouds were trying to move out and the sun was attempting to peek through. In the bottom photo, if you look closely, you can begin to see some snow on the mountains as the clouds started to lift. I took some photos for a couple that walked up and she complained that the photos weren’t good because there was too much fog. Sigh.

I saw a sign that I could walk up to Rigi Kulm (the top of the mountain stop), so I decided to do that. Stupidly, before I got off at Kaltbad First for this walk, I had thought about riding to the top and then walking down, but nooooo I decided to hop off here and do this, THEN I decided to walk up. Sat on one of the benches to enjoy my pretzel sandwich before heading off.

The sun started to come out and I was sweating, since I was wearing jeans. I needed to change into my hiking skirt and shorts. Thanks to the hiking skirt, it was easy to do right on trail. Skirt on over jeans, pull off jeans, put on shorts, and no one the wiser. Even the only person I saw, the woman you can see as a tiny speck on the trail in one of the above photos. Also in the tunnel photo, you can see a tower, which was the summit and where I was headed.

I came upon Staffelhohe, one of the stops to the top of the mountain, and wondered if I could hop back on the train to the summit. Unfortunately, I saw it pulling away as I approached. I saw a woman standing there, and wondering if I could even get on the next one, I asked if she spoke English. She said “No, I don’t speak English very well”, in perfect English. I asked if I could take the train up to the top. She nodded and brought me over to the timetable on the wall. She then said, “You can …” and mimicked walking with her fingers, then said “But…” and panted. We both laughed. She perfectly communicated that I could walk, but it would be hard. The next train wasn’t for an hour, and the sign indicated I could walk up in 40 minutes, so I set off to walk up the rest of the way.

She wasn’t wrong, it was fairly steep. My entire walk from Kaltbad First to the summit was 2.6 miles and 1,200 feet of elevation gain, much of that gain was concentrated in two short segments. Views along the way to the summit (the one with the railing would supposedly have the Matterhorn, if the clouds weren’t in the way):

I saw very few people until the second to last stop, where many people walked down from the top. Down. Like intelligent people would do. I was one of only a handful of people who walked up. Sweating, huffing, and puffing, I finally got to the very last bit and saw a family. I overheard the mom say to the dad, “She walked all the way up?!”, then turned to me and said “You’re almost there!”.

This sign at the final bit to the top. I should have chosen the old man path!

After taking a billion photos, I decided it was time to go and got on cog train headed down. However, I started to get really chilly (from being so sweaty) and decided to get off at Kaltbad First since I knew there was food and drink and a nice bathroom where I could change clothes. I changed back into my jeans and a clean shirt and bra. The wait for the next cog train was longer than the aerial cableway (large gondola) down to Weggis, so I took the gondola down.

In Weggis, I walked from the gondola station down to the boat dock.

Left photo: stairs. I think the Swiss designed the Death Star, they aren’t big on hand railings. Center photo: the sign for Weggis had roses on it, and almost every garden I passed had roses growing. Right photo: Gnomes! Gnomes are all over the place and not ironically! Garden gnomes have Swiss and German origins and lots of homes have them as decoration.

As I arrived at the boat dock, I saw that I had I just missed the boat. I could have run for it, but instead let it go and got a sandwich (another pretzel sandwich, how did you know?) and a terrible frozen lemonade thing. I unknowingly sat in an outdoor seating area for a bar that I thought was for the hut thing where I got the sandwich. The bar waiter asked me to move or order something, so OH NO I ordered a cocktail. How awful.

I took the boat back to Lucerne. Now that the sun had come out, it was much nicer to sit outside and enjoy the views.

On the boat there was a family with three kids, maybe four. As we’re disembarking, one of them ran off ahead of the family and the mom said exasperated, “Luke! If we lose you in Europe…again”.

I decided to explore the area of Lucerne around the train station.

I walked over three bridges, including the Kapellbrücke. I saw some people filling their water bottles at one of the many fountains all around Switzerland (a very common and normal thing to do there). I got back on train to Basel. Once back in Basel, I picked up something at the train station (not a pretzel sandwich) to eat for dinner since Beth would be at a work function. Relaxed back at Beth’s and planned for Day 3! Incidentally, I took 19,361 steps. Double my normal step count.

A side note about trains:

As you read in this post, I took a lot of trains. I also rode a gondola, a cog train, and took a boat. All of those were covered by my Swiss Travel Pass. I had always heard about the Swiss and their trains. But I had no idea. Yes, the trains are on time. Yes, they’re clean. But also, the entire country is covered by public transportation. You can get virtually anywhere in Switzerland via public transportation, as you’ll see in my posts about my visit. The trains run often, too. I didn’t plan any of my day to Lucerne, I looked at when the next train was (at most an hour later, but often 30 minutes) and decided if I wanted to take it. And it’s super easy to figure out when and where trains are going via the app. I literally just typed in where I was and where I wanted to go and it gave me several options. Because I had the travel pass, I didn’t even have to reserve anything. If I wanted the 4:30PM back to Basel, I just got on and showed my pass when the ticket checker came by. The boat routes and times were all in the app and included in my pass. The cog train up Rigi was in the app and included with my pass. The gondola back down was in the app and included with my pass. The travel pass is like turning the entire country into one of those hop on/hop off tourist buses. I bought the 8-day pass for my entire trip and it was 100% completely worth it. While it was worth it mathematically (what the cost of my tickets would have been versus the cost of the pass), it was also worth not having to book tickets and not worrying if I’d booked the wrong one or gotten on the wrong one. I knew I could just flash my pass and take a different one if needed. If you’re ever in Switzerland, get the travel pass, get the SBB Mobile app and enjoy unlimited travel around the country.