Zurich - Trip to Pilatus

View From Fräkmüntegg - and Dark Skies Overhead

Pilatus is one of the must-see things to do in Switzerland, so I couldn’t leave Switzerland without giving Idette the opportunity to go there.

Again, getting the tickets is a bit complicated, because although I could see the RailAway deal on the internet, I wasn’t really sure how to get all the various bits of the journey correct (it involves getting a train, the steepest cogwheel railway in the world, a cable car and a gondola) or how to get it without committing to a specific time of travel. You can also get a boat if you like, but it adds several hours to the journey.

Anyway, we got our tickets the day before from the station and the woman serving us was very helpful and took my half-fare card into account and my existing travel pass for my zone and Central Zurich area. And she ensured we got the ticket that would have the correct forms of travel and allow us flexibility of when to travel. Phew.

Our travels all went smoothly, although we got a little lost in Kriens trying to find the cable car to go up, but it gave us a walk among the hills, so it was good for us. There were a number of Japanese tourists there, so we had to queue a little to exchange our tickets for tickets for the gondola in order to have the bar codes to let us in through the automatic gates. Impressively, a man was there cleaning the gondolas as they came into the station. This is Switzerland.

We ascended the first part of the mountain until we got to Fräkmüntegg (there’s a Swiss word for you!!). From here, we were supposed to take the cable car up to the top, but the mountain was covered in mist. It was so unfortunate! We decided to eat lunch at the restaurant there, while we still had a view of some kind, and in the hope that the mist would clear in the mean time.

There was an adventure park right just as you got out at Fräkmüntegg station, so the first thing you see is people walking along a tightrope above the massive drop below. It looks scary and impressive! Although it was misty, it wasn’t cold, so we were able to eat our lunch outside. For the first time, I had a very Swiss lunch of Roesti with fried egg on top! It’s making me feel hungry again just writing about it.

The mist didn’t move, but we took the cable car up to the top anyway, but visibility was literally nil. We watched a film, so that Idette could see what she was missing, and I think we had a snack before taking the cogwheel train down.

The cogwheel train is the steepest in the world and it’s one of those crazy ideas that someone has and then goes ahead and does while everyone scoffs saying that it’s impossible and won’t work and then succeeds and becomes a roaring success (in Egypt, that’s like El Gouna). Given the bad weather conditions, the train was still quite full. Going down, we were quickly out of the mist again and it’s amazing as you travel through the mountain at some points and you just have the bare mountain rock either side. It’s incredible how they ever excavated through it.

The upside of Pilatus being misty was that we had some time to look round Lucerne (the Chapel bridge, the old town, and the church, which actually I’d never seen before) and to have some coffee and cake.

Despite the less than optimal weather, it still made a wonderful and varied day out!