Toilet Break:

We are on a day trip up a mountain and Tyler and I need to go to the toilet so we head over to the building with a sign that says WC. There are two doors, one says "Damen" and one says "Herren". Now I don’t speak German but one word has “men” in it so it seems pretty obvious to me which one is the blokes. We walk in and there are two cubicles but no urinal. Bit weird I think but so what. Tyler and I go in and share one cubicle (we like to sword fight) and Tyler starts whispering “Dad, I think we are in the girl’s toilet”. I said, “Don’t be stupid mate, it had MEN in the word on the sign”. So we are mid way through our sword fight and someone comes in and goes to the next cubicle. Tyler keeps insisting “Dad, Dad, I think we are in the girls toilets”!!! I said “Mate, what would you know, I’m telling you this is the MENS toilet”. So we finish up, wash and dry our hands and head out and I say to Kris loud enough so Tyler can hear me, “Which is the men’s loo Kris, the one that says Da-MEN or the one that says Herron?” Needless to say I don’t think Tyler will let me live that one down for a while!

Day 27 Zermatt:

Today we wake up to a carbon copy of yesterday, blue skies and perfect weather. Since we have been in Switzerland we have been blessed with the weather. We get ready and head down for our breaky and clear the breakfast bar of croissants before walking up to where the cable car ride will take us to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise. We buy tickets for the Glacier Paradise and for Schwarzsee. To get to Schwartzsee we will have to come back down and take another gondola on a different route but first, it’s the Matterhorn!!! We get on board the first ride which is a gondola to Furi and swap over to one of the big cable cars. These things are a pretty hairy ride dangling by a wire and every time you go over one of the main towers the cable car rocks back and forth for a bit. The first one takes us up to Trockener Steg 9642ft (2939m) above sea level. We get off and we are miles in the air and we think thank god I thought we were going to hit the sun and then we realise there’s more to go!!!! So we follow the masses around the corner and there s another big cable car. We climb on board and head off and this thing is insane, it just keeps going up and up and right at the end it feels like it’s going vertically up as it’s hugging the side of the mountain. We arrive at the Glacier Paradise and we are 12739ft (3883m) above sea level. We get off and starting walking through the tunnel inside the mountain that takes us to the snow fields, this is probably a 150m – 200m walk and we are finding it tough to adjust to the altitude. We walk out of the doors and WOW, what a view and people are skiing and snow boarding it was awesome. We’re standing there for a bit and we get talking to this bloke who works there as a ski instructor or something. He gives us some advice on where to wander to and what to see and how much fun we can have, a really good bloke, so Kris says “thanks mate” and we head off into the gift shop!!?? After the compulsory souvenir buying we take a wander along the ski paths and just admire the views. The Matterhorn doesn’t look as impressive from behind or this close up, it loses its grandeur a little but there is plenty more to look at that is impressive. We spend some time up there and it’s freezing. The sun is belting down on us but it is still freezing. It was that cold I even wore the gloves that no one else would wear (see photo). After that we went down this lift that took us inside this glacier cave. This is pretty awesome and they had ice sculptures in there and they had this ice slide that you could slide down and pop out of the mouth of some animal ice sculpture. We give this a shot, the kids are having a ball, and I happen to see the dude who was playing the alphorn yesterday up at the Gornograt standing next to me. I tap him on the shoulder and sign language to him with a series of head movements and eyebrow raises “hey mate, check out the photo’s on me camera I took of you yesterday playing your alphorn” (because you just assume everyone around you can’t speak English). It turns out he does speak English, just, and he’s stoked at the photo’s and before you know it he’s organising our next holiday and we are staying with him and his wife at his wife’s mothers cabin in the mountains of Interlarken!! Lovely people. We get out of the glacier cave and take another wander around the snow before heading back down the mountain. The ride down isn’t any less hairy but we get down safely. We change at the bottom and take the series of gondola’s back up in a different direction to Schwarzsee. Even though we weren’t going as high up this time, the trip on those gondolas was the scariest of all our rides up the mountains since being in Switzerland. At one point while we were going up and I mean way up, it slowed down to a stop and I’m thinking “holy crap we’re doomed”. I tell you what, it’s really hard when you’re a fully grown man and you’re pack’n ya daks but you have to stay calm so the kids don’t freak out. Anyway, we are all still alive and we made it up the top safe and sound. We have a look around, not much to do up there but it was an awesome view. We head back down and stop off half way and I have my 98^th Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) since being in Switzerland and then we make our way back to the bottom and home again. We are beat and our hotel has a wellness centre downstairs with a sauna, jacuzzi, steam bath, spa showers. So we get reception to bring us up some robes and we strip off, robe up and whack on those silly little slippers and we all rock on down for an hour or so of solid relaxation and revitalisation. AWESOME. Now it’s off for dinner and into bed. Tomorrow we need to be on the train at 10 for the Glacier Express ride to St. Moritz.



"What you see when you first go out on the snow. The ski runs are off to the right"

"Kris and the kids in the snow"

"Me and the kids in the snow"

"It was very cold on the mountain so the kids needed some extra rugging up"

"Tyler is trying to............god knows what he's trying to do!!??"

"Mia is trying to make it snow"

"How embarrassment...........but it was COLD"

"Eating a Toblerone bar wth the famous Matterhorn symbol while on the Matterhorn. I think Mia enjoyed that!!"

"That is a long way up"

Day 26 Zermatt:

I wake up this morning, it’s about 6:30ish and I take a look out the window. The sun hasn’t quite come up yet, a couple of stars are still in the sky and it is clear blue, not one cloud and this is what I see

It’s like the Matterhorn is looking over me. It is incredible, what a view. As the sun rises it shines on the Matterhorn and that mountain is like a god. It’s almost like the sun is not allowed to shine anywhere else until the Matterhorn is fully ablaze. This experience has surpassed any other for me on this holiday so far. I am watching this from my bed........admittedly I’m standing on my bed but still, it’s from my bed!!!!

Of all the things we have seen so far on this holiday, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the things we still haven’t seen like the Colosseum in Rome and the Duomo in Florence, I don’t think anything can beat this. There were two reasons I wanted to come to Zermatt, one was the Glacier Express and the other was this. What a way to wake up and what a way to start our day. Today we will be going on the Gornergratbahn. This is a train that takes us from Zermatt up the mountain to Gornergrat 10,170ft (3089m ) above sea level, the highest we have been yet. The ride will take us about 40 minutes. First though it’s breaky and although this hotel is 4 star and pretty luxurious the hotel we stayed at in Lucerne, which definitely wasn’t 4 stars, had a far better breaky set up. Never the less we still had a pretty good feed and then we took the 30 second walk to the train station for our ride to Gornergrat. This is a very steep train ride that hangs on to the sides of mountains by its nurries and gives you the most amazing views of the Matterhorn and of Zermatt. We get to the top and the views are pretty good but we have been spoilt over the last couple of days and this just doesn’t quite cut the mustard not to mention the kids are disappointed with the lack of snow. There is a heap of snow on the mountains we are looking at across the glacier but none where we are standing. We look around for a while and decide to grab some lunch at the serve yourself restaurant they have up there. The prices are obscene so we’re looking for the most cost effective option. We spot a “large” self serve salad for 16 CHF (AUS$18) and some chicken nuggets at 1.10CHF each to share. Now there was no instructions on the limits of how “large” this salad coud be so Kris piles this plate up and by the time she has finished this plate is starting to resemble the Matterhorn. We go to the cashier and she gives us this sideways look as if to say we had exceeded the “large” limit but lets us through anyway. Another “way to go Kris” and we are feeling good. We finish up and decide it’s time to go back down the mountain. There are several stops along the way and I’ve decided bugger the fact we have just forked out 180 bucks on train tickets, lets walk down to the next stop!!!??? The kids are keen but Kris is giving me that sideways look that the cashier just gave me. Anyway, we start walking and we all agree this is a lot of fun and I take a squillion photo’. We even see this dude playing the Swiss alphahorn (refer photo) which we sit and watch for a while. I don’t know how far we walked as we were snaking our way down the mountain but it was a 935ft (285m) vertical distance. We get to the next train stop and jump on the next train. We are all shagged after that and just want to get back to the hotel. On the way down I suggest what if we get off at the last stop before Zermatt and take some photos!!!???? Everyone’s now giving me that “cashier look” but they follow me off the train anyway. We start walking and before we know it we have walked another 1,640ft (500m) vertically down. This was an extremely hard, steep, winding track and we still have miles to go to get to Zermatt and then, all of a sudden Mia spots a sign indicating another train stop. We all throw her in the air like that kid on the “Old El Paso” TV advert and we take the short walk to catch the train. We get to the bottom tired and ready for a feed and a good lie down. We will need the rest because tomorrow we’re going higher again to the Matterhorn!!!

"Swiss rescue dog......isn't he cute!"

"The kids in front of the Matterhorn"

"A working church at 10,000ft above sea level"

"Eat your heart out Indiana Jones"

"My little champ, leading us home"

"Admiring the views"

"The man playing the Alphorn"

"A view across the lake"

Day 25 Lucerne – Zermatt:

Today starts with us packing again but it’s a bit easier this time because we haven’t used as much stuff. The hotel room we have been staying in is very small, a lot smaller than the apartments. It was basically one room with a bathroom. The bedding arrangements were 4 single beds with Kris and mine pushed together to form a double, Tyler’s was next to Kris’s side and Mia’s was at the end of us, very, very cosy!!! We have to be at the train station to leave for Zermatt at 12 o’clock so we head down for breaky. After breaky we leave our stuff at the hotel and go and check out Lucerne’s Musegg Wall and its Towers. This is an old wall built in 1386 to protect the city. We climb up inside a couple of the towers and the views over the city are impressive as the wall and the towers sit high up on the hill at the back of Lucerne. After that we wander around the cobble stone streets until it’s time to go and get our luggage and get back on the train. This train ride consists of 3 legs, one from Lucerne to Bern, then we get off and get the Bern to Visp train and then it’s Visp to Zermatt. Switzerland so far has been our favourite destination and we have only been here 3 days. The only complaints I have with Switzerland is 1. You can’t reserve seats on trains, why, buggered if I know, seems a stupid system to me especially when the doors of the trains open for everyone to get on and it resembles the WWE and 2. everything is so expensive, you have to hand over your life savings for a ham and cheese baguette!!! Anyway, we get on the train and the first leg is pain free until we have to change trains. We have 7 minutes to get off, battle the slow people, get around to the train at the next platform (wherever that is) and find a carriage with some seats available. We get off and I turn into Usain Bolt at the start of his 100m run, except with a suitcase, backpack, computer bag and a kid hanging off me and I’m running with the occasional glance back for Kris. I hit a wall of pensioners who look like they’re coming back from a lawn bowls convention and it looks like it’s curtains for us until this nuggety surfy looking chic, who obviously is catching the same train as us just starts ramming people with an occasional "‘scuse me" thrown in. She’s leaving this vortex behind her that we file into and we get to our train just on time. We find the few remaining spare seats and sit down and we are all sucking up the big ones. That was a tough run. The next stop isn’t as adventurous as this station is only a small one not like the station at Bern so it’s easy to find where we are going. We get on and head to Zermatt. The train ride is a beaut and we get to Zermatt upbeat. Our hotel is only 200m up the main road (that’s true this time) so it’s a short walk. We checked the net before arriving and the room they said we were getting looked impressive but you never know what you’re going to get until you get there. We get shown to our room and this thing is the penthouse suite. This is the best room in the hotel (check out the link) with a balcony onto the main street, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and the Pièce de résistance, a magnificent view of the Matterhorn from all over the room. We have motorised windows on the gable roof above our bed and in the bathroom that open up and the Matterhorn is right there, you can just about touch it and you can even look at it while having a shower. We are stoked, this is AWESOME!!! We throw our stuff in and head straight down to the main street where all the shops are and have a look around for a while before getting dinner and a couple of drinks in the hotel bar and hitting the sack. Tomorrow is gonna be a big one.

"Tyler on top of one of the towers at the Musegg Wall"

 

"The Musegg Wall"

 

"How's train travel working out for you Tyler, enjoying it yet.....Tyler......Tyler"



"Mia finds herself a Harvey substitute at Zermatt train station"



"Zermatt"

Day 24 Lucerne:

Today is our second and final full day in Lucerne and it started the same as yesterday, down at the hotel restaurant for breakfast, Tyler’s favourite part of the day. We are doing the Mt. Titlis excursion today which involves catching a train from the main station to Engleberg. We get down to the station in time to catch the 9 o’clock train for the 50 minute journey. We get off the train and make our way to the Mt.Titlis front gates. The first leg is a gondola ride which takes us about half way up. Then we board a large square cable car which takes us up to another stop where we board a round revolving cable car. This cable car revolves as you are going up so you get a 360 degree view. We thought yesterday was a long way up, this is taking us up another 3000ft higher than Pilatus so we are really starting to feel the altitude. We get to the top and we are now in the clouds. We get off the cable car and go outside and the mountain is full of snow. The kids are extremely excited and start making snowmen and slipping and sliding around. We walk around a bit and the kids seem unaffected but Kris and I are really feeling the pinch with the altitude, especially when you walk up a hilly bit of the mountain. We take the Ice Flyer chair lift across the glacier and back again. That was a lot of fun as we hovered above and looked straight down into the glacier. We get off the Ice Flyer and head inside for some lunch. We get a table looking straight down the mountain, it looks like a 2000ft drop and the clouds are streaming up the mountain and over the top of the restaurant. We have lunch and make our way into the glacier cave which was very cold. We head back out into the snow and take a walk around. I’m taking steps and my feet are dropping about 2 feet into the snow it’s that thick. It’s also very slippery in parts so coming back down hills is a pretty funny sight. It’s a beautiful day again on the top of the mountain and we have been very lucky again. We actually had to whack on some sunscreen as we got a little burnt yesterday. We take a bit of time to enjoy the snow before deciding to take the trip back down the mountain. We stop of at Trubsee where there is a lake and we go for a walk. This is an amazing spot where people are picnicking and hiking. We walk around to the lake and get a coffee at the restaurant on the other side. We can’t believe how many people are hiking these mountains. People bring their bikes and take them up chair lifts and ride back down or people will bring their dogs up gondolas or the cog wheel trains and take them for walks up here. It’s weird, you’ll be sitting in one of these things hanging from the sky miles up and you look around and a dog will be staring at you!!! Anyway, this spot is beautiful and Kris and I decide that when the kids are off our hands this is where we will come every year during Perth winters. We make our way to the bottom of the mountain and catch the train back to Lucerne. We go back out for dinner and I hand over the remainder of my superannuation for another feed and then it’s back home to bed. Tomorrow we are off to Zermatt and the mountains there are even higher. The Matterhorn is the big attraction there and we can’t wait to see it.

"Out the front of the Mt Titlis front entrance"

"The train parked at Engleberg station"

"The kids enjoying the snow on top of Mt Titlis"

"The view at the top of Mt Titlis"

"I think I might where my crappy ill fitting suit and leather shoes to the top of this snowy mountain.......beep, beep, beep....weirdo alert, weirdo alert.....beep, beep, beep"

"The view of the lake at Trubsee"

Day 23 Lucerne:

What a day we have had today. Our first full day in Lucerne was a cracker, definitely the best day of our holiday so far and I don’t think my blog writing skills are good enough to explain how amazing it was, but I’ll give it a crack anyway. It started off with us buying tickets for the Mt Pilatus Golden Circle Tour down at the reception desk in our hotel. We then went in and had our very expensive “free” continental breakfast (the Swiss love charging a fortune for rooms and including free breakfast, which for us given the amount we eat, is about 4 bucks). Breaky was pretty good and Kris smuggled a couple of ham rolls out for the kids to eat later (so make that 4.50, way to go Kris!). So we are eating breaky and it’s about 8:15 and we check out the various tour start times for Mt Pilatus and realise the first tour leaves at 8:45 down at the jetty about a km or so away. We umm and uhh about do we catch it or wait an hour for the next one and we decide, we’re going for it. So we scoff down our breaky, head up to our room and get ready as quick as we can and we double time it down to the boat and when I say double time it, I mean we ran like crazy. We get there with a few minutes to spare and jump on board. To explain the Golden Circle Tour it starts off with a 90 minute boat ride on Lake Lucerne to Alpnachstad where you get off and jump on the world’s steepest cog wheel railway. This is a 30 minute ride, sometimes at a 47% slope to the top of Mt Pilatus which is 7000ft up. Once there, you can wander around or take walks along tracks or walks inside tunnels where you can poke your head out of some hole in the side of the mountain. You can eat & drink at the restaurants, BBQ, whatever, heaps of stuff. Once you’re done with that, you board the cable car and start the descent down to Fräkmüntegg. You can get off here and you can take a ride on Switzerland’s longest toboggan run or do the rope climbing course, they have a kid’s playground, restaurant, whatever, heaps of stuff. After that you get on a gondola and descend further down to Krienseregg where you can get off and do......heaps of stuff and then you get back on the gondola and descend further down to Kreins where you catch the bus back to Lucerne. So, we are on the boat heading for Alpnachstad and it is a very foggy morning but you can tell that perfect weather is just waiting to burst through the fog. The boat ride is awesome with huge hills and mountains on both sides of the lake, it’s just stunning. We get to Alpnachstad and jump on the cogwheel railway. This thing goes up the side of the mountain and bloody hell it’s steep. The view within seconds is magnificent and it just keeps getting better every minute. We get to the top and the fog has lifted, the sun is shining and we are gobsmacked, the view is AMAZING, you just don’t know where to look first, well Kris does......the gift shop of course!!! After we have bought another kilo of stuff for the suitcase we head out along the walking trails and take some pics and just soak up the views for a while. We get some lunch at the restaurant before wandering around some more and taking some more pics and do some more walking trails and take some more pics. My camera is just about smoking up at this point so we decide to head down on the cable car to Fräkmüntegg and do the toboggan ride. We make sure we are right at the front of the cable car to get the best view and it’s a quick but amazing ride down. We head to the toboggan run and we team up with the kids, I share a toboggan with Mia and Kris is with Tyler. Mia is keen to put the hammer down so we fly down this thing and what a ride. We are waiting at the bottom for Kris and Tyler and we wait.....and wait......and wait. I’m starting to worry as it’s now getting dark, just kidding but Kristine is soooooo slow she’s holding up traffic!!!! They finally get down and we decide that we are doing that again. We get dragged back up to the top on our sleds by a wire cable and buy another ticket and swap teams. We let Kris and Mia go first and we don’t want to get held up so we give them a bit of time before we go. Kris and Mia start off and Mia must have control of the stick because they are flying. Time for Tyler and me to do a Swiss Olympic bob sled performance to catch them. We get to the bottom just behind Kris and Mia and we all agree that was loads of fun. After that we continue on down the mountain this time in a 4 person gondola. The ride down is pretty hairy. We get off at the next stop and check out the area before continuing on in another gondola. When we get to the bottom we make the short walk to the bus stop and catch the bus back to Lucerne. We get back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. We end up at this restaurant right by the water and end the day in another perfect location. We get stung half my superannuation for dinner but we don’t really care because it’s been one awesome day. Time to go home and get some sleep because tomorrow we do it all again but 3000ft higher up this time on Mt Titlis!!!

"On board the boat to Alpnachstad"

"A view from the boat along the way"

"A view from the cogwheel train"

"A view from the top of Mt Pilatus with a cogwheel train heading back down"

"A view from the top of Mt Pilatus looking over Lake Lucerne"

"At the top of Mt Pilatus"

"Kris and I took the cogwheel train up the mountain, Mia decided to climb!"

"So Tyler followed"

"A church perched on top of Mt Pilatus....just!"

"A view on the way down from Mt Pilatus from the cable car"

"A view across the toboggan run with a cable car coming down from Mt Pilatus"

"Tyler and me at dinner"

"Kris and Mia at dinner"

"Our view across Lucerne at dinner"

Day 22 Munich - Lucerne:

Today we leave Munich and head to Lucerne in Switzerland. Munich has been a nice change, a slowdown in pace from London and Paris. This morning we finish packing the bags and clean up and go for one last wander around the streets of Schwabing before leaving our apartment and walking down to the underground to take the train into Munich’s Central Station. Our train takes off around 12:30 for the 4 ½ hour journey to Zurich and what a journey this proves to be. You couldn’t peel my face off the window. This was how I was expecting the European country side to look. Rolling hills and a sea of green with quaint little houses and those amazing Swiss churches. This was a fantastic train ride made all the better that the train probably didn’t even get over 80kph for the whole trip. We got off at Zurich and had to change trains to Lucerne. This was a lot less stressful than our last change over as we had 20 minutes this time. The only problem is, for train rides within Switzerland you can’t reserve seats so it was a bit of a free for all when we get on the train. We were at a disadvantage because we had 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, a computer bag, Kris’s handbag/backpack thingy and 2 kids. But, we did have one thing in our favour, Kris!!! She could take out Jonah Lomu down the aisle of a train in a situation like this so we were always a chance of getting something. We scored 3 seats, Kris got one to herself and I shared the other 2 with the kids, well done Kris. The 45 minute ride into Lucerne was an even more amazing ride as the country side started to open up to Lake Lucerne and the mountains in the distance. We get off the train and wander outside and this place is awesome, what a fantastic looking joint. The kids are happy as they were giving out free Coke in the train station. I convince Kris that our hotel is just down the road so it’s just a short walk and after 16 years of marriage she still falls for that one. We are staying in the old part of Lucerne, the best part and it is lined with cobble stone roads and our hotel room overlooks the river. The guy at reception is fantastic and gives us some good tips so we should be able to hit the road running tomorrow. We head out for a look around and have some dinner. We have fallen in love with this place already.

"About to board the train to Zurich"

"Playing cards on the train, take that Mia!"

"Our first dinner in Lucerne"

Day 21 Munich:

We had 3 main things we wanted to do in Munich, the Dachau Concentration Camp, Oktoberfest and The Eagles Nest tour (Adolf Hitler’s headquarters). The Eagles Nest tour was a day trip that we assumed went every day. We went to the tourist centre on Monday, our first full day in Munich, to be informed that the tour only runs Mondays and Fridays. The Monday’s tour had been cancelled due to snow and Friday’s tour was no good for us because we are on a train to Switzerland. No amount of research could find any alternate tours or tour days so unfortunately this tour didn’t happen and we were a bit disappointed. So today is our last full day in Munich and we now have a free day to look around and just for something different we thought we would take.........the OPEN TOP BUS TOUR!!! Unlike London and Paris, Munich’s open top bus tour was a bit lame, a bit like taking an open top bus tour through Perth. They have 3 routes, the city route, the Schwabing route and the Olympia route. In London and Paris these buses litter the roads like cigarette butts, there was so many of them running it was a relatively short wait if you were waiting to get back on again at any stop. Not here, the city tour only runs every 30 mins or so and the others are like every 1-2 hours with designated times. We do the City tour first which takes an hour. Truth is I reckon we could have whipped around in about 10 mins because they stopped a lot and there wasn’t much to see. I think if we hadn’t of been to London and Paris beforehand this tour would have been a lot more exciting. We get back to the start with the intention of jumping on the Olympia tour that takes us to the Olympic stadium but it’s not there and it is a bit of a wait. The Schwabing bus is there though so we jump on that thinking we will go around and then get off close to our apartment, do a couple of things and walk back into the city afterwards. We didn’t realise we were staying as close to the city as what we were until we did this tour. On the map it looks a fair hike but we are actually a lot closer than we think. We get off the bus and wander around and make our way back to the apartment. We box some stuff up to send home because our bags are getting bigger and heavier. We happen to have a post office around the corner so we make our way there and have it shipped off. We continue walking into the city buying a couple of snacks on the way. I told Kristine that the last Olympia tour was leaving at 4:30 so that was our target time. We get there at 4:05 and realise I had got it wrong, the tour had left at 4:00. Ooops! I worked it out when we got home, from the time we got off the Schwabing bus to the time we had got back to the start of the Olympia tour stop we had walked just over 7kms. So now that we have missed that bus we are a bit disappointed and we can’t be shagged doing much else so we decide to make our way home. We just snack for dinner because we have eaten at the local Italian restaurant 4 nights in a row and last night you could have rolled us home. We have eaten that much since we have been in Munich we are starting to feel a bit crook and although the apartment we have been staying in in Munich is fantastic, Kris and I have been having an issue with the bed which is a whole different story on its own, so sleep has been at a minimum. So tonight will be an early one after we have done the bulk of the packing and we can wake up ready for our next rail journey to Lucerne in Switzerland.

"Another open top bus tour....YAY"



"Downtown Munich"



"You have stiffy problem or feel you not match uva guy? Eat at China restaurant get Man Fat!!"

"Afternoon coffee at the coffee shop next to our apartment"