The Matterhorn was covered in clouds this morning.
We were so very fortunate to have seen it in all of its glory yesterday! And to have such good weather to explore beautiful Zermatt. It's a pilgrimage for the outdoors oriented adventurers.
Time to train travel. Hiked and rolled our suitcases over to the train station for the first short connection at Visp. Here's a few views as we headed down the river Vispa as it cut a gorge through the mountains, descending 2,135 feet from Zermatt :
When I had researched which platforms our trains during the day will be, well, since we only had 11-min. in Visp, and it is a small station, as it turned out, if Jan wouldn't have confirmed the platform when we arrived we would've been really scrambling. It changed from platform-4 to 5. And a nice Swiss lady double confirmed it for us! We had a couple minutes to breathe easier. But ... we (I) had a casualty. In the frantic efforts to leave the train and hustle down and up the ramps to change platforms .. I left my hat on the train. My John Helmer Haberdasher stylin' gray fedora.
It's now on an adventure by itself travelling the Swiss rails! It will see some pretty country.
On to Bern .. our hearts are slowing down.
Excitement was plentiful when we reached Bern. We knew we only had 6-min.! to go from platform-2 to platform-8. We arrived about a minute late, had to go down the ramp to the center area, then over and then up another ramp, and as they were about to close the doors we screamed at the trainman and barely squeezed through the door with our luggage. Door closed and the train started down the tracks with us holding on. We found some seats with our large suitcases and sat down out of breath! Last leg for the day achieved! On to Lucerne.
One of the route stops was in interesting .. Zofingen.
Arrived ready for more adventures in Lucerne.
A few pics as we walked to our hotel :
We checked in, freshened up, and left for lunch and Joe's adventurous plan of hiking up the hills to walk along the medieval Musegg wall and it's watchtowers.
distracted by another interesting business sign :
The Musegg wall is 2,854 feet long and 30-ft. high.
There are (9) of the original (30) surviving watchtowers left. Most all of this was built in the 12th and 13th centuries as the city fortifications.
We climbed part way up one of the middle ones.
Here's a map of how they're strung out :
You'll see pic's of looking out from the top of no.2 looking across at the city .. awesome views!
Here's the little guy on the top of our spire :
We hiked back down the hill. Here's pic of no.1 :
A short hike back to the hotel, but first, a stop for some gelato! After a well-deserved rest after a crazy travel day we went to dinner at Pfistern Restaurant down on the river. It was established in 1578 !
What a day! Hopefully tomorrow's train travel won't be as hectic! On to Basel then transfer to a train to Colmar, France. A couple of days there before continuing on to Paris.
Viva la France!
Time to go hat shopping. Then you can really impress people when they ask where you found it.
ReplyDeleteThose train connections were too close! German and Swiss trains aren't messing around and they leave *on time*! Glad the only thing you left behind was your hat! Hopefully as your pace slows and you spend more than 24 hours in a place you can find a fun new hat to remember the trip by.
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