Never Enough Fun

The last part of our stay in Switzerland consisted of two trips to the Alps with an R&R day in between.  The first trip was to a town called Kleine Scheidegg (Lauterbrunnen) that was close to one of Ethan’s favorite mountains, the Eiger.  As might be expected, we rode a train about 65 miles southeast to the beginning of mountains, and then we rode a tram up the mountain to Kleine Scheidegg.

It was just as awesome as Ethan claimed it would be. So, we enjoyed the scenery, had lunch, and tried to appreciate.

On our in-between-mountains day, we accompanied Stacie to the recycle center. The Swiss are heavy into recycling. At home, food-related waste is collected to be picked up and taken to a compost facility. Special bags must be purchased for non-recycle garbage (e.g., tissue paper), and that pays for the garbage pick-up each week. All things recyclable are taken to the recycle center and separated into their respective bins (e.g., cardboard, glass, two kinds of plastic, aluminum and non-aluminum cans).

Our second mountain excursion was to a mountain not too far from Luzern. Along with our guide (Ethan), Stacie, Tanner, and Lindsey accompanied us. So, we first road a train to Luzern, then a short trolley ride to a place called Kriens, where we next boarded a gondola for our first leg up the mountain.

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The gondola ride ended at a park/playground with a summer Toboggan run, which the kids rode (with Ethan taking Lindsey).

Following the toboggan ride, Stacie and Lindsey returned home and the remaining four of us rode a cable car to the top, which included a resort with hotel and food services at 7000 ft. There were also many hiking trails.

After lunch and taking in as much scenery as we could hold, we rode the world’s steepest (up to 46% grades) cog-wheel railroad down the mountain to the end of lake Luzern.

At lake Luzern, we got a boat ride back to Luzern where we caught the train back to Zug.

Early next morning, we began the long ride home (Zurich to Paris and Paris to Salt Lake City).

We had a marvelous Switzerland experience, thanks to Ethan and Stacie taking such good care of us, guiding us to interesting places and working so hard to make us comfortable.  Since they live in the German-speaking part of the country, things become quite challenging because of the language.  Interestingly, however, there is a fair amount of English (e.g., announcements on trains and buses and ads in stores).  To make certain we boarded the correct train from the Zurich airport, Ethan met us there and also guided us to the correct bus to their apartment, where we arrived at approximately 9:00 p.m. on Friday.  They live in the town of Zug, approximately 30 miles south of Zurich.

Tanner and Lindsey attend an international school, which was holding a fair our first day there, so we attended it in the morning until lunch.  After lunch, Stacie stayed to help with the fair, while Ethan and we took the children to an animal park/petting zoo.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant up on a mountain close to town, which required us to ride a cog-wheel train up to the restaurant. The food was excellent, as one might expect.
On Sunday, we attended church in Luzern, about a half hour ride by car. However, because their car wasn’t large enough for all six of us, Ethan took the train. Since the church service was in German, we were able to have some of it translated into English by LDS missionaries.
On Monday we and Stacie first walked to downtown Zug (about 20 minutes) and just looked around.



We had lunch with Ethan by his office, and then for the afternoon, we went back to Luzern to do more “looking around.”
Along with some interesting architecture, we saw a famous and old covered bridge that was decorated with original artwork. Unfortunately, there was a fire on the bridge a few years ago, and some of the art was lost.