Basel & Lake Lucerne

We made it to Basel 45 minutes later than originally scheduled yesterday

We were thankful that our hotel was a quick walk out of the train station and across the street.

We met for breakfast in the charming hotel restaurant before making our way back to the train station for our day tour.

Our agenda today was trains, boat, cogwheel train, cable car, gondola, bus and MORE trains.

We met our tour group consisting of five other people who are all from Texas and jumped on a train to Lucerne.

We had one train transfer on our way to Lucerne.

Upon reaching Lucerne, we boarded a boat for a lovely sail around the very scenic Lake Lucerne. Lake Lucerne is overlooked by the majestic Alps, beautiful farmland, and looks to be an outdoor enthusiast's playground. We saw sailors, wind surfers, bikers, rock climbers, hikers, rowers and kayakers. I absolutely fell in love with Lake Lucerne and would be happy to spend time doing all of the above until my body finally gives out.

We then scaled the heights of Mt. Pilatus via the steepest cogwheel in the world: 48% incline. As we gained elevation, the views continued to get more and more impressive.

We had lunch at the summit. We spent too much time at lunch, so our time for taking photos was brief.

We descended the mountain via a 50-person cable car. We exited the cable car mid mountain to take in more views and transfer to a 4-person gondola. Natalie had a couple of deep breathing and eyes closed moments, but she managed not to spray the interior of the gondola with her lunch of bolonase and beer-for which we were all grateful. (Love that Natalie is conquering her fears or at least managing to hang onto her lunch-way to go Natalie!).

We had a lovely walk to a public bus which we took back to the Lucerne train station where we made our way back to Basel via trains.

Mom continues to surprise all of us. The cogwheel train was on a steep slope. We had to quickly race up about 30 steep stairs. I told mom that I would go ahead and save her a spot. We got to the car, I turned around and there she was right on our heels!!! In addition, our guide was a speed demon over the entire 7600 steps that we did today-once again, mom kept up amazingly! She is proving why we call her Great Diana.Read more