Day 31 Venice:

I don’t know what it is that gets everyone is so excited about Venice because it has certainly been lost on me. There must be something good about this place though given the 28 million tourists walking around these streets. Another day here has not improved my impressions of this place. It is seriously over crowded, the place smells, the locals are rude and I have just about had it with the herds of sheep clogging up the streets every 30 seconds as they follow behind their tour group leader who’s holding up their little “follow me” marker! The rudeness is something that has taken us by surprise though. I saw Kristine get angry with an ice-cream shop lady today because of her rudeness; I haven’t seen her get this worked up at all on the holiday so far. Kristine paid the money for the ice creams and when the lady handed back the change Kristine said to her “you are rude, you’re a very rude person”, it was hilarious. Some of the main attraction areas like Piazza San Marco are just a nightmare due to the huge volumes of people and this has been extremely disappointing for us. We’ve had to put up with crowds everywhere we have been so far but here it seems different and maybe that’s because the place is so small and everyone is confined to small alley ways. Unfortunately I also think my Venice experience has been tainted a bit by the disappointing accommodation. The apartment is very clean and it is in a great location but it’s obvious to us that the people who own the apartment and the people managing the apartment do not care at all about our holiday experience and only about lining their pockets. We’ve contacted the lady who we met when we arrived in Venice first thing yesterday morning about some minor issues that needed attending to and we are still waiting for a response. We got slugged 50 Euro ($70) up front for a final clean. We will effectively be in this place for 2 ½ days and they slug us 50 EURO to clean the joint!!! Normally Kris and I and the kids would do a pretty thorough clean before we leave an apartment but we will not be doing that here. I’m telling you now the skid marks on the toilet bowl are staying put when I walk out this door tomorrow! I’m convinced though that Venice is not the real Italy and that this place has become some sort of contrived Italy based purely on tourism, well that’s my hope at least. We get to find out tomorrow as we leave here and head to Florence.

"The coffee standing up experience"

"Hello signore, would you like your pizza by the slice?"
"I don't think so signora"

"She better not be eating my pizza"

"The family shot"

Day 30 Venice:

After a full on day yesterday we are hoping for a better day today, our first full day in Venice. The first thing that is apparent is the apartment is nowhere near as good as any of our previous accommodation. When renting holiday accommodation there are a few simple things that you should be provided with like, a hair dryer, globes that work when you turn the lights on, dunny roll......how about 1 spare dunny roll!!!! At all our previous accommodation we would open the pantry and there would be basic provisions, some cereal, jam, band-aids, tea, coffee, soap.......a spare bloody dunny roll!!!! Not here, it’s like some dude has just been evicted and the place has been stripped of anything useful. They have a 14” TV!!! Who in the hell still has a 14” TV????? And, the bloody thing doesn’t work. They have no instructions for anything in the apartment and they have no information about Venice at all. When you are staying in holiday accommodation for 2 or 3 days you need an immediate leg up regarding tourist information so you can hit the ground running. In Munich for example, the owner had a huge map with about 50 coloured pins in it describing where all the restaurants were, shops were, pharmacies were etc. Fantastic!! She had tourist brochures, books about Munich, public transport information, exactly what you would expect in holiday accommodation. Not here though. Also, all our other accommodation has provided free WiFi and not having it provided here has made it even more difficult to get quick and easy information about Venice. This apartment is fair dinkum shizenhousen!!! This has increased my disappointment with Venice and Italy at this point so it’s time to get amongst it and try and resurrect my impression of the joint. We leave the apartment and go for a wander and basically try and get a feel for the place. Kris is in love, she is instantly taken by the place and this is one place she was really looking forward to but I’m having a hard time with it all and at this point Venice is sitting at the bottom of the pile as far as destinations I have been to so far. I’m finding the place to be a bit same old same old. It seems if you’ve been up one little alley way you’ve been up them all and if you are sick of walking up alley ways there is bugger all left to do, not to mention the place is on the pong!! I think that maybe I’ve been spoilt by all the amazing places I have seen so far and I need to view Venice in isolation. We go back to the apartment and I wash my brain of all previous thoughts and we head back out for another go. We find a place that sells pizza by the slice. Beautiful stuff, that’s more like it. We walk down to the Grand Canal and eat it while watching gondola’s float by. We continue walking and we come across a place selling gelato and we all give it a shot and this stuff is beautiful. We give the kids the reins and they lead us to god knows where because this place is like a rabbit warren. We get lost numerous times before we eventually found our way back to the apartment. We managed to find a place selling take-away wine on the way so we grabbed a bottle for home. We set the kids up in front of a movie on the computer and Kris and I set about guzzling this bottle of wine on our balcony overlooking the canal. This proves to be a bit of a turning point and when that’s gone we get ready to head out for dinner. We walk for a while but end up back at the same restaurant as last night just around the corner from our apartment. We had a fantastic meal and we all sat around talking and cracking jokes and we all laughed so hard that we were in tears and I nearly spat red wine all over the place I was laughing so hard. It was something we all needed because 4 weeks of travel together had got us all a bit stressed. Tomorrow we will be going on a gondola ride so we are looking forward to that.

"Kris and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Me and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Wndering around the Canals"

"That's not a pizza, THIS is a pizza"

"Eating the worlds best pizza down at the Grand Canal"

"You can't have the worlds best Pizza without having the worlds best ice-cream"

"Out for dinner on the canal"

"Mia's having a bad hair day at the restaurant"



"Tyler's hair day is not much better"
(Mia is behind him and she has thrown her hair over Tyler)



Day 29 St. Moritz - Venice:

Well, that was a day we weren’t quite expecting. Today we were leaving our overnight location, St Moritz and heading to Venice in Italy. This was going to be our most challenging journey of all the journeys we have on this holiday as it involves 4 legs over 8 hours. It all started ok, we get out of bed in our hotel in St Moritz and headed down for breaky. After that we head back upstairs and grab our stuff and then the porter gives us a taxi ride to the train station for our first leg, the 10 o’clock train to Thusis. We get on board and this train takes us back along the same line as the Glacier Express except on this train you can slide the window down so I spent the entire leg standing up and sticking my head out the window. We get to Thusis a couple of minutes early. At this point we have 9 minutes to transfer to a bus at the bus port to take us to Bellinzona. 2 minutes prior to arriving at Thusis we thought we were transferring to another train but my 453^rd check of the ticket proved vital as I discovered it was the bus and not the train we were getting on to next. Phew, tragedy averted!! We find the bus without too much of a problem and we are on our way. The next connection could be hairy as this bus ride is reliant on road traffic that could potentially hold us up but ol’ Giovanni the bus driver has clearly done this route before and he puts the hammer down. This bus route proves to be the most amazing route we have travelled to date, an absolute cracker with views I didn’t think existed. I can’t explain any of it in a way that will do it justice in this blog. All I can say is, if you ever get the opportunity to travel the road between San B and Bellinzona, do it, it is incredible. We get to Bellinzona and we now have 12 minutes to find our next connection to Milano. We find the platform but the train isn’t there, it’s running late!! OK, it’s only 6 minutes, shouldn’t be a problem as we have a 20 minute transfer time at Milano. We get on board and we have seat reservations but this doesn’t seem to concern any of the other morons on the train and we end up sitting all over the place in different seats. At this point we’re all tired, we’re travelling with two kids and we are in the middle of an all day train ride. This one old woman insisted she had to sit in our seat because it was an aisle seat and her hip is no good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What I said to her was “No worries, my daughter will sit over here and we will work around you and.......” What I felt like saying was “Get you fat old wrinkly arse off my seat and go and sit in your own seat you silly old......” But I didn’t. This train leg is only 1 hour and 25 minutes, one of our shorter train rides, so we can put up with a little inconvenience. As our scheduled arrival time gets closer we start loading up by putting our back packs on, grabbing any other bags we have and eyeballing our suitcases ready for the mad dash, standard procedure. The train starts to slow down and I ask this bloke if this is Milano Station and he tells me no it’s not, apparently the train is running 20 minutes late. I’m sort of not too happy right about now especially considering this is a 1hr and 25 minute train journey and the train is 20 MINUTES LATE!!!!! Regardless of this fact I still think we may be a chance to make our connection even though its 20 minutes late and I don’t know what platform we have to get to at this point in time. The train finally pulls in to Milano and we bolt, we run as fast as we can to an electronic board to see the platform number we need to get to. We have a look.....no number, just some words scrolling where there should be a number. We grab some Italian train worker who’s sitting down having a fag and drag him over to the board to translate the text and he informs us the train has left. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFar out!!!!! What now??? I tell Kris and the kids to follow me and I run around like a chook with its head cut off trying to find an info desk. We see one and there are some people talking to this train conductor looking bloke. It soon becomes apparent that they too have all missed their connection to Venice. This train conductor bloke is clearly unsympathetic and tells us that there is another train in an hour and to get on that and explain our problem to the conductor on that train. I say to him “What about our seat reservations” he waves his hands around in a way that pretty much suggests to me that he doesn’t give a rats. We wait until the next train and it’s not at the platform we were advised to wait at so we now have to battle the masses of people who were already at the correct platform. I collar the conductor at the door of the train and explain to him our situation that we missed our train and we now don’t have seat reservations and he just says “get on this carriage” We get on and there are no seats available so we just have to stand there. Luckily there is another older Australian couple in the same situation who got on the same carriage as us and they both spoke fluent Italian. The train gets moving and a different conductor comes to check our tickets. He checks the other Aussie couples tickets first and the wife just launches into this conductor in Italian and they are going at it hammer and tongs. They argued for a good 10-15 minutes. In the end they had to fork out extra cash to stay on. He turns to me and I show him my ticket and I start giving him a spray but he can’t understand a word I’m saying so the Aussie woman translates for me. After about 5 minutes the Aussie woman turns and says to me that he’s kicking us off at the next station because our ticket hadn’t been validated for this journey. At this point Tyler’s crying, Mia thinks it’s all good fun and I am gobsmacked. We’ve paid for our tickets, his stinking train was late and we’re getting kicked off!!?? The Aussie woman goes back in to bat for us and it turns out he wants another 32 Euro ($45) from us to stay on the train. The Aussie woman manages to convince him that we shouldn’t have to pay and in the end he let us stay on. We still didn’t have a seat and we ended up standing for the entire 2hr 45min journey. The other Aussie couple were fantastic. They ended up letting the kids sit in their seats and the husband even set up his laptop and put a movie on for them. About 10 minutes later, we pull up to the next station and this Italian couple jump on and the same conductor, who is out on the platform now, orders them off. This couple, in their twenties, are not getting off. This massive argument breaks out and the conductor calls the cops over and it’s full on. This couple are not getting off and the conductor is doing his block trying to pull their luggage off, it was insane. The train was delayed by at least 15 minutes and in the end the couple were allowed to stay on. So, we finally arrive in Venice and then we had to work out how to catch the N1 water taxi to Santa Maria del Giglio station to meet the lady about our apartment. I had just phoned her and we needed to meet her there in 40mins. We’ve both just about lost the plot at this point and we’ve got no idea where we have to go or what we have to do but we somehow managed to work it out. We get to the Santa Maria del Giglio water taxi station..... no woman. We call her again, twice, and she finally rocks up. At this point its nudging 8 o’clock, none of us have eaten since breakfast, we have been at it for 10 hours and we are not in a happy place. At this point our impression of Italy and all things Italian are not good. We get to the apartment, throw our stuff down and find a restaurant around the corner on a canal. We sit down and thankfully it is a fantastic meal. After that it was a quick look around, back to the apartment and into bed. What a day!

"A very foggy morning in St. Moritz"

"I love train travel..........."

Day 28 Zermatt – St. Moritz:

Today we leave Zermatt and it is with a little sadness because we love this place. The Matterhorn was amazing but the whole place is just fantastic and we will definitely be coming back. We start off by packing the bags and heading down for breaky. By 9:30 where out of there and taking the short walk to the train station to board the Glacier Express. The Glacier Express was one of the main things that the holiday was designed around so this is a big day. With the Glacier Express you can take on board your own food and drink so we have taken a couple of things on for the kids and a roll each for Kris and me. We get going for our 8 hour train ride at 10 o’clock and I’m like a kid in a lolly shop and the views are as expected, spectacular. We get into it full swing and the waiters come down and ask us if we want to order the 3 course lunch at 46CHF ($53) each. We have rolls to eat but we think, were on the Glacier Express, why the hell not so we go the whole hog and order wine as well. The waiters set the table up with the table cloths and silverware and we ate like royalty. This proves to be a fantastic train ride, one that we will never forget. We get to St. Moritz and throw the rolls in the bin. We get to the hotel and head out for a wander and soon realise that this place has shut up shop for the day, it’s like a frig’n ghost town. St. Moritz is one of those places the rich and famous holiday full of shops like Prada and Gucci set on a lake with snow capped mountains at the door step. We think the place is a bit of a bore so we grab some dinner and head straight to bed. The train ride today was a massive highlight but the final destination didn’t impress. Tomorrow we head to Venice, let’s hope that has a bigger impact.

"About to board the Glacier Express"

"Wine time"

"A typical view on board the Glacier Express"

"Another typical view on board the Glacier Express"

"The view from our hotel room in St. Moritz"

"A view over the river to the moutains in St. Moritz"

Currently Ofline

We currently do not have internet access and will be back online on Tuesday. I am not sure why the comments section is not working. I have changed some settings so please keep trying. Kris would like to send her love but have explained that this is purely a technical message.

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"