Switzerland: Monday and Tuesday

The view from the back of Groesli's housse.

Rapperswil house

As above

Rapperswil Castle

Rapperswil Castle across the lake

Interesting street drain grate

Another, we count over 20 varieties

Rapperswil Castle

ON the way to Rapperswil Castle

Rapperswil Castle (other end)

Old town square from Rapperswil Castle

New fashion in announcing births

flowers everywhere

Bubikon church clock tower

Dani's cousin Jacqueline

Dani's Groesli

Not the same as the ferry

Moving cows down from the mountain for the winter

Groesli's special almond cake and strawberry creme

First cable car up Pilatus

Second cable car wire up to top of Pilatus

From Pilatus down to Lucerne

Sunday night dinner

Sunrise on cornflowers, tuesday, from Gotti's back yard

At about 1500m on Pilatus they build a church, then a landslip came and the church is now on the edge

the railway line down Pilatus

From top of Pilatus Alps in the distance

Sunshine on Glaciers and snow

from Pilatus to Lucerne lake

Hotel on the top of Pilatus

Fritz and Anastasia

Mechanism for Pilatus train

Lucerne lakeside

End of the day

Today, the day we are updating our blog is Friday. So we have a few days to catch up!! So much seems to have happened. This post will get us up to Tuesday. So Sunday: arrive Zurich. Monday: crusader castle at Rapperswill and climb up Bachtel. Tuesday: Pilatus.

We are well. Tai had a sore throat and bit of a cough on Tuesday and Wednesday, but a special sray from Gotti, applied every half hour or so managed to cure him within a short time. Wednesday seemed to be the day the boys overcame or recovered from their jetlag. Dani still seems to be struggling with that. But while we tourists to Switzerland just have the jet lag to contend with, Dani has the memories of her childhood to revisit. It is ten years since Dani was last in Switzerland.

So:

The family tree: Daniela’s mother, Verena, had a sister (Marianne) and brother (Fritz). Their Mum is Daniela’s Groesli. Marianne is known throughout the family as Gotti (godmother), which is not strictly accurate, but affectionately persisted with. Gotti has two children, Jacqueline (who was at the airport with boyfriend Willy and his son Jason) and Dominic (who lives in USA). Groesli is a widow, her husband passing on in the late eighties. Gotti’s husband George passed away in 2005, though she has a companion by name of Felix, now. (But he appears not to appear in any photos).

On Sunday afternoon we had cake and strawberry cream at Groesli’s. 

 The dish is whipped cream, with whipped strawberries and a little sugar folded into it, and is yummmmy. The cake is Groesli’s special occasion cake and features almond meal, fresh fruit jam and more yumminess. 

The next day (Monday) we walked across the hills to Rapperswill, on the northern edge of Lake Zurich, to look at an old castle that was used as a staging post and hospital for some of the Crusades.

We walked through the old city centre at the foot of the castle and then caught the train home to Bubikon. The trains so run on time, they tell you (within each carriage) the exact minute it arrives at each station.

After lunch we went with Jaqueline to the Bachtel. A tallish hill (1200m – Bubikon is somewhere around 350m elevation) nearby that provides a panorama.

ON Tuesday we were up early and down to Bubikon station by 7:30am. We were met by Fritz and his ex-partner and ongoing companion Anastasia. (Anastasia is Kenyan and spends half here year in Kenya, half in Switzerland.) We trained it to Zurich, switched trains and got out in Lucerne. From  there we bussed to a cable car. The first cable car took us up 1000m. At this point we had a few turns at a toboggan run (in a metal channel): FUN! Speed and more speed with every extra turn!!

Then another cable car that took us to the top of the mountain known as Pilatus. It was 7 degrees in the shade, but we have been blessed with the weather being fine, sunny with no wind. We have been getting about with shirtsleeves most of the time.

From the top of Pilatus (2132m or 7000ft) we could look south and see the Alps in the distance, including the Eiger. There is a hotel up on a saddle between the twin summits. There was full on construction going on, with helicopters bringing materials and taking away rubbish and bringing concrete as required. There were many people up here: tourists. Amazing views. We could look back down on Lucerne and the four armed lake (whose name translates as the “city and forest lake”) we had come from. The story goes that Pontius Pilate was sent to Switzerland by the Romans after his stint in Israel, and his soul is held in eternal damnation in one of the nearby lakes, thus Pilatus.

We ate lunch and walked to each summit, including a section through tunnels in the rock and then caught a ‘train’ down the southern side of the Pilatus (opposite to cable car) that is the world’s steepest train track. With 48% incline at it’s steepest.

We wearily made our way home.