Monday, August 20, 2012

More from Switzerland Vacation

I only took pictures with my iphone. But WG took tons of pictures with the camera. But I still have to upload them to my flickr acct. This is what I took with the iphone.

After a long day of train rides, [high point: on the Glacial Express through the mountains, low point: our last train no air condition, sitting on the sunny side of the train], we arrived at Lausanne, Switzerland. Did I mention it was hot like NJ? Thank goodness the hotel was close by, walking distance from the train station, nice size and decent air condition. We cooled off a bit and took a tour of Old Town via Rick Steve's walking tour. 


I've already shared few pictures from Lausanne. These are just random stuff I liked. I guess I had orange and green on my mind.


Lausanne_orangeGreen

[SIDE NOTE: we stayed 2 days in Lausanne, I didn't get any pictures of the second day, all of it is on WG's camera.]

On our second day, we caught the ferry to Yvorie on the French side of Lake Geneva (or so we thought). After a couple of hours of roaming around, we make our way back to ferry to try and get to another train to go to famous Chateau near Lausanne. 

But . . . we find out we are not in Yvorie but Thonon les Bains. Talking about not paying attention. WG said he had a feeling we were in the wrong place. I had no clue. The next ferry [and only ferry] back to Lausanne was in two hours and we can't make it to the Chateau. To make a long story short, we follow the crowd off the morning ferry and didn't listen to what the stop was. Oh well, that means, long lunch with dessert at outside cafe. 


Off we go on another day of train rides, this one on the golden pass. Up through the mountains, through cute mountain villages [what do these people do for a living, everywhere big homes, beautiful gardens and tons of walking paths], two train transfers, we arrive [without getting off at the wrong stop] at our next stop on crazy whirlwind of vacation, Lucerne. 

Once again, we checked in to the hotel, cooled off then took a tour around the town. Small enough to walk to almost all the sights. Here's what I got:

The famous Covered Bridge


covered bridge 


The famous Lion 
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And Indian for dinner. Not bad, found the place roaming around town. 

The next morning we decided to go to Mount Pilatus. First off to the tourist information. The only reason I'm mentioning this is they were so helpful. They gave us all the options and time table to make our decisions. The best tourist information we've encounter in all of our travels. 

We took the Ferry and 1 1/2 hour ride on lake the ferry to Mount Pilatus [we mistakenly sat in first class for the first third of the way. Second class, just a little bit more crowded and less comfortable seat]


From first class of the ferry 
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From the ferry you take a cog wheel tram up the mountain. Here's a  shot f
rom the top of Mount Pilatus. This where did a short hike and I got all the shot of the wildflowers in bloom. 
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Always the funny man, here's WG trying to yodel.  yodeling

Well that's all for not. I have to stop or I'll never post this. I'll try and get more pictures up from the camera. But it needs a bit of editting [WG takes a lot of pics].

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