Luzern- the gateway to Central Switzerland

On Saturday, we went to Luzern- approx. 2h away from Zurich by train. We enjoyed ourselves so very much! It's by far one of the best 'excursions' I have ever had...I wish all my family and friends could come here and experience it too!

The highlight of the trip definitely has to be going to Mount Pilatus or Pilatus Kulm- "A uniquely impressive panaroma of 73 Alpine summits and countless lakes awaits you, some 2132 metres or ~7000 ft above sea level". So, first we took the aerial cableway up to about 1416m/4649 ft (Frakmuntegg)...

At Frakmuntegg is Switzerland's longest Toboggan run apparently, so we HAD to try it! The Toboggan is the wooden thing you see below. You just sit on it with the curved surface on the ground and it picks up speed really really fast! We were really under-dressed compared to everyone else but we went for it anyway!

The areas with steep slopes and iced surfaces were the best needless to say! While going down, you really dont know what is hitting you man, ice or snow or water or whatever..its just so fast! There were some sections where we had funny 'incidents'. The first round, Bingkai didn't join us. Maccann was all the way in front. I was in the middle and Jr at the back.

So at the beginning, we went down this pretty steep slope and Mac banged into the pole holding the sign 'Langsam' (which means 'Slow' in German) so I came along a while later and I started laughing at him until I realised that I was going to slam into the pole as well. I managed to avoid the collision by going under the flag haha but I wasn't so lucky later because I had my own accident when I slammed into another pole really hard. The blue black is MASSIVE. (Mummy don't be worried everything is under control, but I can assure you its the biggest blueblack you have ever seen..bigger than anything any of us ever had..but you know i like blueblacks..haha). After that Jr overtook me and caught up with Mac and at one point both of them were side by side...it was so funny but luckily they gradually managed to get some distance between them!

After that, we continued our journey on the cable car up to the summit of Mount Pilatus. Its stunning really. There are actually many myths and legends associated with the mountain, some got to with dragons and what not. But the gist is that in the middle ages, the bleak crevices were believed to be the haunt of a well-meaning dragon and spirits. It was said that the restless ghost of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had found its final resting place in former Lake Pilatus.

Anyone who comes to Switzerland should make Luzern one of his/her stop! Its definitely worth it! In fact, we could have done so much more on the mountain but we did not have enough time.

The city area is also really interesting, with many quaint old buildings and lovely architecture. However, we were just too cold to really appreciate the castles and all. So we just took a short walk, had dinner and took the train back!

Anyway. MUMMY look what I found! I bought a pair for you- it cost 13 CHF. They have it in like 4 sizes. This is the second smallest.

Today we are all staying home after all the work we put our bodies through yesterday. We were supposed to go to Jr's place for lunch but I told the guys to go ahead and we all ended up staying at home. I think Mac and Bingkai are really amazed at my laziness. Ok back to German homework for now! Tata!