Titlis

My mom came to visit us in Switzerland this week.  We spent several days entertaining her in Zurich in the evenings (while she explored the city on her own during the day), and then on the weekend I took her up into the mountains to get a feel for the real Switzerland.  Initially I was planning to go to Zermatt to see the Matterhorn, or Interlaken to see Jungfrau, Moench, and Eiger, but the weather forecast said that it would be rainy and storming over the weekend, so I decided that it wasn't worth spending the money to get there if the views were going to be all cloudy.

Instead, we decided to go to a 'local' mountain - Mount Titlis (I still snicker everytime I say it). Titlis (hee hee) is about a 2.5 hour train ride, plus a .5 hour gondola ride away from Zurich, so perfect for a day trip.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a beautiful sunny day, so there was little chance that we'd get disappointed.

We packed our bags, wearing light summer clothes and taking extra warm clothes for the cold mountain top (there's a glacier on mount Titlis, so you know it has to be cold up there).  We left early in the morning, and took an hour to look around Luzern while waiting for the next train to Engelberg. We walked over the covered bridge, and wondered why there were so many bridges in the town.

Then made sure we got a good seat on the train up the mountain.  After reaching Engelberg, a sleepy ski town known for its monastery and lots of statues of angels everywhere, we took a series of gondolas all the way to the top of the mountain (3238 meters above sea level).

The last gondola was the world's first rotating gondola.  Not quite as exciting as it sounds, but neat.

Up at the top there is a snackbar with a nice sundrenched terrace (complete with lounge chairs for suntanning and an amazing view), and a chairlift to the glacier park.  We even got to see the Titlis Buddah (giggle).

Apparently the Swiss mountains are used in many Bollywood films, and have since become very popular with tourists from India.  I got to take my picture with some stars - not sure who they are, but they must be popular.

Being the adventurous cheapskates that we are, we decided to walk down to the glacier park, rather than take the very expensive chairlift.  The walking was tough since the snow was very soft.  Also the fact that we were so high up and that there was snow everywhere didn't change the fact that it was still really hot!  Unfortunately halfway down the path was closed, so we could go no further.  We never made it to the glacier park and all its toys,

but we did get more superb views.

After walking back up the snow hill (not easy in the high altitude), we had lunch and then went back down the mountain as the storm clouds approached (the weather forecast was spot on).

We also ran across some Marmots - spot the Marmots.