By the end of august, one of the last really hot and sunny days of the late summer, my mum and Manuel (my stepfather) came for a visit to Switzerland. Although they really love thun ,the city close to where we live, this time they had decided to visit Lucerne. When I was a little girl I went to Lucerne once with my parents and my mum remembered it to be really beautiful. That was one reason to visit. The other reason for them was to meet with Markus' mum who lives close to the city. As we were invited, we spent a long weekend together with both of them in the idylically located Hotel Kastanienbaumin Horw, a suburb of Lucerne. We had a wonderful room with views over the lake - to be honest, we were really spoiled. And what did we do in the Lucerne region?
My parents, of course, did a short boat trip. And, despite the landscape being so beautiful, they were a little bit shocked about the behaviour of many russian and arab tourists on the boat not taking care of any other passengers. Well, this is Lucerne nowadays. It really is stunning, but there is a constant crowed of rich russian, arab and asian tourists. Most of them are really nice, but there is always this bunch of people...... So, we were happy that our hotel was a bit out of town and really peaceful. After the boat trip a nice wonderful evening on the terrasse over the lake, the following day it was time to explore the city itself. We did a lot of walking around and, of course, did not miss the Kapellbrücke and the narrow lanes of the old town. Everybody was happy but all agreed that our home town Thun nicer. ;-)
In the afternoon we drove to Lake Baldegg where Markus mum lives. After some delicious cakes and tea we walked along the lakeside in a regional nature parc before we visited Kloster Baldegg which is a wonderful monastry. In the evening the whole family went out for dinner together to enjoy some Rösti - the typicall swiss dish of grated potatoes.
Another lazy morning with a long and delicious breakfast was waiting for us. But Markus and I had a different plan first. Early morning we went down to the lake, doing a little bit of yoga and then we had a very refreshing swim in the lake with the sun just rising behind the mountains. It was really refreshing, but the hot shower afterwards let us "melt" again and we were really hungry and enjoyed the breakfast.Then together we drove to Alpnachstadt. From here you can take the steepest mountain railway up to Mount Pilatus. No-one of us has every taken the train. And what a train it was! It was soooooo steep, hard to immagine that a train could go up there. Manuel and my mum got nearly scared. The train is accurately constructed directly into the mountain on some parts. Really a special and wonderful experience. After about 50 minutes we reached the top and were greeted by swiss alphorns playing. First we enjoyed the tremendous view over Lake Lucerne and the Alps. Then we hiked up on the "Esel", one of the viewpoints. What a spectacular view! My parent were speechless! Further on we did some light hiking around the top with stunning views in all directions. The 2 were really impressed and happy. We enjoyed a nice hot coffee in the sun before taking the train down in the afternoon.
In the evening, we had one last pizza together in Stans in a nice restaurant overlooking the lake. And after a night walk through Lucerne it was time to say goddbye to our parent. We had to go back to Thun and back to work and they left the following days back to Stuttgart in Germany.