Day 1 - Mount Pilatus continued

Writing on the way to Interlaken. Yesterday was one awesome day. We got our first taste of Swiss alps and a feel for Swiss. We had booked the golden round trip to Mount Pilatus from Lucerne. This trip comes with a 90 min ride in a ferry + 30 min ride in a cogwheel railway + return trip 10 min in aerial tram + 20 min personal aerial gondola ride + a 10 min bus ride back to Lucerne. Can you see why that was a "golden" roundtrip ? :) We started from the shores of Lucerne with a ferry ride to Alpnachstad.(More on Lucerne in the next post). The slow moving ferry staged a series of alps, one more beautiful than the other. I lost my count of "wow"s somwhere after the 20th alps. These alps without snow, look more like miles and miles of golf courses with thick patch of forests in between. They look so lush, so green with no hint of industrialization. The house are stacked from shore down(remember I am in a ferry now) and extend till the peaks. I probably shouldn't have said stacked, the houses were minimal and scattered. Some houses on the shore had a two boat garage much like our car garages and all the houses had colorful flowers in the front yard, making it a really scenic beauty. Once the ferry ride is over, we hopped on to the Cogwheel railway. This had a 45% gradient and snaked till the top. As we move, a cloud of mist surrounds us. It travels with us to the peak and never leaves us all day. Mount Pilatus, once on the top is just like any other hill station. You get an awesome 360 degree view, all the Swiss pastures and all the Swiss cattle. We did a couple of hikes, Jeevan dragging me through the last two. Back on the tram again. Being in Albuquerque(home of the Sandia tram), the tram really didn’t excite me much and then we took the personal aerial gondola, and back to Lucerne. I had fish and chips for lunch at the summit. Was alright. Nothing to die for. Mt Pilatus is one spectacular day trip when you are in Swiss. I enjoyed the journey to reach the top, rather than the mount itself. We ended the day with a Swiss truffle cream and whole big bar of Swiss choc. Chockie bye for now.