Becky and I decided not to join any of the excursions today and explored Lucerne by ourselves instead. We spent the morning on a 3 hour cruise on lake Lucerne.
Arriving back in town, went across the chapel bridge and took a quick look inside the Jesuit church where I managed to miss a step and end up on my bum. Becky thought it was hilarious.
We had crepes for lunch and did some shopping in the chocolate shops before heading back to the hotel for our farewell meal. I don't have any photos of the meal because I decided not to take the tablet with me and just enjoy the company of the lovely people we've met on this trip instead.
This morning we left Geneva and headed to Lucerne on the Golden Pass Express train. Due to technical difficulties we had to change trains in Lausanne before stopping at Interlaken for lunch. It was a cloudy, rainy day, so there were no good photos of the Eiger or the Jungfrau to be had. This was the best photo we managed to get.
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Due to a landslide the train line from Lausanne was out, so we had to continue our journey to Lucerne by coach, where we saw the famous lion.
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After a brief stop at the hotel to check in and change, we headed out for our yodeling evening at Stadkeller.
We had cheese fondue as a starter, rosti as a main course and chocolate fondue for dessert. All the traditional Swiss dishes in one meal, and that's not mentioning the beer.
The company and entertainment were great and we got to watch our friends Nancy and Mohan blowing the alpine horn and yodeling.
We left Zermatt this morning and took a series of trains across the countryside to the French speaking part of Switzerland and on into Geneva. As a child I used to watch a TV show called "The Champions" about a group of agents with special powers who were based in Geneva. The starting sequence showed them standing in front of the Jet D'Eau fountain in Lake Geneva. So I've always wanted to see it.
A fascinating fact about Lake Geneva is that although it's the largest body of water in the Alps, it's not the largest lake in Switzerland because a lot of Lake Geneva is actually in France.
Geneva has a strong UN presence and is also home to the headquarters of many international organizations such as the WHO, WTO, the Red Cross, etc. It's also worth noting that the symbol of the Red Cross is the Swiss flag with the colours reversed. We took a short tour of the city by bus before being dropped off at our hotel for our evening dinner cruise on the lake.
There are many impressive multi-million dollar homes along the lakeside belonging to people like Roger Federer.
We sailed into French waters during the evening and by the time we came back it was dark so I got to see the Jet D'Eau lit up as well
After an amazing morning up at 10000ft we spent the afternoon exploring Zermatt. It's a small town but very pretty.
We had lunch at a traditional Swiss restaurant. Raclette as a starter followed by rosti for my main course. It was a lovely meal.
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The town is closed to almost all vehicles with the exception of horse carriages and small electric "taxis" with a top speed of 20kph.
Even the police are restricted to an electric vehicle and I'm sure a thief who was fit enough could outrun them on foot.
We did a lot of shopping and took in the highlights, including the church, climbers' graveyard, etc.
After an exhausting day we spent the evening having a drink in the hotel bar before heading to bed for an early night. It's another 6.30am start tomorrow to head for the train station and on to Geneva.
This morning we took the cog railway up Gornergrat to over 10000ft.
This was above the level of the low lying clouds so we got some spectacular views of the Alps. Including some impressive glaciers.
There were also some amazing views of the Matterhorn.
But I think this one is my favourite...
We checked out of the Reine Victoria hotel in St Moritz this morning. I didn't say much about St Moritz or the hotel yesterday. St Moritz is a beautiful town but obviously very upmarket and aimed at the super rich. St Moritz has been home to the winter Olympics twice: in 1928 and 1948. It has the oldest bobsleigh track in the world (opened in 1908). It is also the only natural ice track in the world - all the others are artificially iced. For the bargain price of 270 Swiss Francs, 2 guests can go down it in a 4 man Bob with an experienced driver and brake man. There wasn't time to do it even if I'd had the nerve. It has to be booked well in advance.
After breakfast we checked out of our grand old hotel that we had been very impressed with and boarded the Glacier Express to Zermatt. The Glacier Express is a very posh train with a glass roof. Unforunately, the weather was a bit wet and much of the journey was cloudy so we didn't have views quite as good as yesterday. However, we were treated to a very nice 3 course lunch as well as tea and cookies during the 8 hour journey.
We arrived in Zermatt at about 6.30pm and had a snack for supper before walking through the picturesque old town to a point where we could get a nice picture of the Matterhorn.
