On Wednesday, July 1st, GYC left the Black Forest of Germany for the final time and headed to Lucerne Switzerland. We boarded a boat that ferries people around the lake, stopping at points along the way. The weather continues to be wonderful during our 1.5 hour boat ride.
We left the boat and boarded a cog train for the ascent up to the summit of Mt. Pilatus, a 7000 foot peak on the shores of Lake Lucerne. What an amazing piece of engineering! The train goes right up the face of the mountain at inclines in excess of 45%. The ascent took 30 minutes, and the temperature dropped from the eighties to the fifties as we went up.
The views from the train of Lake Lucerne were breath-taking!
The summit of Mt. Pilatus was covered in clouds. We spent about an hour walking around the summit, admiring the clouds and the spectacular views that could occasionally be seen from the summit.
We left Mt. Pilatus via gondola. All of GYC boarded a single gondola car that holds 40 people (like the one below) and descended halfway to a place where we switched over to small gondolas that held 4 people each for the last half of the descent back to Lucerne.
After a bit of shopping in Lucerne, we boarded the bus for the ride to Kandersteg Switzerland. We are staying in Kandersteg for 3 nights, checking out on July 4. Yesterday, July 2, was a slower-paced day. The kids got to sleep in until 8:30. After a short rehersal for last night's concert, we walked about 15 minutes to a gondola and rode it up the mountain. At the top of the gondola, we hiked for about 20 minutes to a beautiful alpine lake, where we spent a few hours hiking, swimming (very cold water!) and rowing small boats around the lake.
Last night's concert was held in the ballroom of our hotel. Several of the folks in town came to the concert. One couple from Ireland were vacationing in Kandersteg and came up to us after the concert to say that they had seen GYC perform 3 years ago at Christchurch in Dublin! Do there 2 qualify as GYC groupies???
Also performing with GYC at the concert was a local yodeling group. Each singing group performed 3 sets. The concert lasted about 90 minutes. The yodeling was actually very interesting to hear. Each of the yodelers sang every song with their hands in their front pockets, which looked a bit strange at first.
Before the 3rd set sung by the yodelers, there was a short delay while Andreas retrieved 2/3 of the yodelers from the bar across the street from the hotel. The beer consumed by the yodelers in the bar didn't seem to either improve or degrade the performance quality of their 3rd set. :-)July 3, it's off to the St. Bernard museum in Martigny and a visit to Montreux, sight of one of the most famous jazz festimvals in Europe, which takes place later in July. More later!
