10 July 2025 (sunny and warm) 0km

Woke up at 5.30am in a nice bed and immediately began blogging.

Worked on it for an hour and a half and when I came to copy and paste to transfer to Julia's phone, I lost the lot. I swear I was totally pissed off!

Julia had been keeping her own account, which was just as well as I wasn't feeling inclined to write it all again.

Eventually I wandered into the kitchen and had a coffee which helped calm my state of mind and the fact that we were in someone else's house.

Ju here: oh you know how Pete loves to exaggerate. Even though he had lost one and a half hours work, he was calmness personified. Not one swear word left his mouth and he merely shrugged his shoulders and casually announced “ah, c’est la vie” with a little chuckle at his mistake. So chilled and accepting. I really don't know how he does it. Back to Pete.

At 7.30am, Margrit arrived to take us back to her house where Julia was going to cook us bacon and eggs.

That was a treat and after chatting and a cup of tea, we all wandered down to the bus stop, with the kids, as Lisbeth is at work today. We caught the bus for ten minutes then the train into Lucerne, and then the train to Stanserhorn where we were going up to the top. 

Ernst and Margrit 

We started on an old venicular for part of the way and then the rest on a very modern sixty person passenger cable car.

Thirty of those passengers, (including us), are outside on a viewing platform area, great for photos.

The mountain peak is 1898 metres and transportation to the top began in 1891 and was completed in 1893.

Each section was electrically powered, making it one of the world's first electrically powered railways and the trip took 45 minutes.

Since then it has been totally modernized, with a revolving restaurant at the top.

Spent most of the day up there and even though the clouds were covering a lot of the peaks, it still gave us spectacular viewing.

The children were fantastic.

So well behaved and polite.

Very nice to see how well they have been brought up by the whole family.

Had a good walk around at the top taking in all the vistas before having a delicious picnic, prepared by Margrit, at an outside picnic table near the top of the peak and surrounded by wildflowers. It was lovely and the clouds were constantly moving giving us ever changing views of the surrounding peaks. I would say it was also extremely peaceful too except there was a man sitting at the end of the table, talking to the woman he was with, non-stop. He was also very loud. Ernst and Margrit assured us we were lucky we couldn't understand him as he was also very boring!

Some marmots at the top of the mountain.

The temperature had dropped markedly as we flew up the mountainside in the cable car, but at the picnic table we were sheltered from the cool breeze and when the sun shone, it was warm.

We took the long way round back to the restaurant and all had an ice cream.

I was pleased to see that my knee didn't suffer any issues at all.

Last night Margrit had given me a compression bandage and five anti - inflammatory patches.

Seemed to work a treat and everyone said the swelling was down from yesterday.

By the time we queued for the cable car, the temperature was dropping, but once we hit lake level, the sun once again warmed us up.

Then, another surprise.

They took us all on a cruise along and across the lake on the ferry, calling into various little jetties for pick up or drop offs.

The lake and surrounding mountains looked a treat and once on the Lucerne side, it was a look at how the very rich live.

But would you be happy with that much money.....ecstatic. !

From the boat, it was straight over the road into the bus station to catch the bus back home.

It was after 5pm by now and sitting on the bus with the rocking motion, both Julia and I began to doze off.

Ernst took the kids home, so we will catch them later as we are staying at Lisbeth and Roland's place again.

Tonight we have to decide if we are staying another day or if the weather will dictate that we move on.

Both very lucky to have showers when we got back and felt nicely tired, before sitting down and writing the blog.

Margrit made us a delicious dinner which was just what the doctor ordered after such a big day. Then she walked us back to Lisbeth and Roland’s where we went straight to bed as it was by now 9pm.