Switzerland and Mt. Pilatus

Switzerland has to be one of my favorite places I've been so far. It's so gorgeous, green and full of fresh mountain air.
Sometimes I can't believe I've even been there!
On my most recent trip to Europe with EF College Break, I had the opportunity to travel to Lucerne (which was one of our major stops). We actually stayed in Engelberg (here), which is about a 40 minute drive from the city of Lucerne.

Engelberg itself was a sight! Beautifully stationed in a mountain valley, we were able to hike around to view points to see the whole town, which was lovely! It being the spring season, it was a bit rainy and not very many people were in town during this time, which actually made it more pleasant in my book.

We got to meet Swiss cows and we eventually got to have dinner, which we chose a nice place where we could apparently only order pizza (since we arrived so late). Of course, I still got wine and my pizza was very good.

The next day, we started off by driving to Kreins where we hopped on gondolas to hoist us up the mountain side, to where the end would be the top of Mt. Pilatus.
The gondolas, a bit different from what you may be thinking of from Venice, are a bit sketchy, especially trekking up the side of a foggy mountain.

At the halfway point up the mountain, we were able to hop off and enjoy a ropes course they had there, fit with obstacles and multiple zip lines! This was probably my favorite thing we did on the trip, because it was so awesome to be able to say I've gone zip lining on a mountain in Switzerland!
We took about an hour or so to do this and while it did cost almost 30 extra euros to do, it was so worth it!

Onwards and upwards! We finally made it to the top and after much anxiety over timing, we got to eat a lovely cafeteria style lunch and take pictures from a great viewpoint there. It did not fall short of amazing and being on top of a Swiss mountain is probably one of the best feelings I've come across.

From the top, we took a cog wheel train to the bottom.

A bit steep, but we made it down in one piece, getting a glimpse of a little mountain goat on our way down as well!
At the bottom, we made our way to the boat we would take next (yes quite a journey on this day) which would take us around the lake and to Lucerne.

Once we made it to the city, everyone was ready to go and explore. There were places to get swiss army knives, clocks and watches, we fancied venturing to a nearby Swiss chocolate shop, which was delicious!
We also got a short tour and wandered to see the sights on our own for a bit.

If you didn't know this about Lucerne or maybe Switzerland in general (not entirely sure), they seem to have a lot of swans there! Swimming and lazing around by the edges where people are.
(Pictured above) The kettle bridge was a nice place to go across and we got to see old architecture mixed in with the new.

More walking led us to our bus that took our tired group back to our hostel. We had wanted to try some famous traditional fondue, but apparently that is only a thing they do in the winter sadly, so we missed out. We did however eat at a really amazing restaurant (I got their special lamb and orzo pasta, yum! Here.) We also tried to head out to a bar that night where we thought they were having a festival celebration for summer solstice, but it wasn't entirely busy and we ended up leaving, although it was a good time while it lasted!

I wouldn't have traded this trip for the world. It was entirely different than what I expected, in so many ways, but it was also exactly what I needed.
I made new friends, made a lot of memories, and got to travel to some pretty cool places.
I'm always ready for my next adventure and I already have a few in mind!

More posts to come, just have to venture out to make more!
Cheer and safe travels everyone!

Germany, Italy, Switzerland - My Time Away

It's easy enough to say that "I had a great trip" and when people ask that's usually my response. They really don't know the half of it though. Whenever I seem to get to Europe I feel like I'm in a different place, a different world altogether. Europe is where my heart is and I'm constantly looking for ways to go back.

This trip I went with a tour group called EF College Break, which when I researched seemed harmless enough. All the other people going along were around my age and the trip itinerary fit where I was wanting to go. Signing up was easy, waiting the year to go was the hard part.
Yes, I signed up a year in advance, mostly so that I would have time to pay off the trip (because they offer that kind of thing for you, to pay monthly or all at once) which was a perfect amount of time for me to afford the payments and save more for the trip as well.

I was going alone, hoping to meet people I could connect and make friends with, but if not, I was good with that too. I was just looking forward to getting away from my day to day, having a break.

To recap my trip quickly (I'll post more about my experiences in each place in other posts), the trip was just what I needed.
We arrived in Germany, spent a day or so getting accustomed to the time change, exploring and eating our way through Munich.
Traveling by bus didn't seem very exciting at first, but air-conditioning and comfy seats weren't so bad. Venice was a dream for everyone and we ate more gelato than we thought we could in a day.
Switzerland was my favorite (more on that later) and we had a great time enjoying the fresh air and lovely scenery, cows included!
Back to Germany, where Frankfurt helped end our trip with a good bit of fun, meaning dancing at a local club and sharing our last dinner all together at a great local place.

The flights, despite being long and hard to sleep on, we're so bad especially when the airline was very courteous and gave us all we could hope for in food and drinks along the way (Delta airlines, by the way).

The trip had some shortcomings, lack of communication and organization in the beginning, but all in all, it got straightened out pretty quickly and we had a great time. Our tour director, while stressed at first, was funny and was glad to share with us what he knew of the different places we were going.

Making new friends and memories along a 10 day trip through parts of Europe, even through the rain, is always great in my book.
I would recommend this to anyone, especially since there are so many trips to choose from.

I will have more detailed posts soon about the different places I went, but for now that is all!

Cheers and safe travels!

Flashback to Switzerland

In 2010, I went on an amazing month long Eurotour after I graduated high school, with a bunch of other kids and some teachers from there.

One stop which was very memorable to me was our stop in Switzerland, Gimmelwald to be exact.
Taking the gondola up to Murren and trekking down to our mountain hostel, which is an awesome place in itself (here), we knew why we were staying here.

The mountain views, the crisp fresh air, the hundreds of cow bells clanking in the hills. It was wonderful.

But the ultimate reason was to really take a long, strenuous hike up to the top of one of the mountains, the Schilthorn, which you may have seen in a James Bond movie at some time.
This hike was grueling for me and made me very nervous. I'm not good at hiking and I didn't know if I would be stuck climbing by myself (because I'm slow) or be the last one up.

I stuck by one of my friends who seemed to have a tough time from the dinner we had eaten the night before.
Pause: He actually did have trouble from that and had to be taken to the hospital after the hike. He had a piece of food lodged in his throat which was making it hard for him to breathe and swallow. He was ok though!
We hiked together and stopped when either of us needed to, also taking pictures for each other a long the way.

Him with a Swiss cow.

Me at the mountain lake, somewhat near the top!

The tricky thing about hiking up here, is that there weren't any markers, just a slight path to follow that went away at certain point in the journey. Rocky outcroppings and a really sketchy narrow path (surrounded by a drop on both sides, this next picture doesn't do it justice) It was definitely an interesting hike.

While this was probably one of the hardest things I have done, it was altogether worth it.
I made it up to the top in about 4 and a half hours and I proudly say this is a great accomplishment of mine.
I didn't even know if I could make it all the way up, but I did it!

Definitely recommendation if you're ever in this area of the world. You might regret it while you're in the process of hiking up, but you won't regret it after.

More to come from this past trip and my upcoming one!

Safe travels!
















(This is Piz Gloria at the top, a revolving restaurant!)