No life-threatening events, no mountains to scale, even by cable car or cog railroad. We didn’t get lost or go to the wrong station. Just laid-back cruising by boat, an hour or so on the bus and then a pleasant and relaxing ride on the Glacial Express from Andermatt to St. Moritz. We’re now checked into the Grand Hotel Kempinski.

Claiming your product is “Grand” is often a red flag: “grand” is frequently far from the truth. Why brag? Why not be understated and let your reputation for being “grand” spread by word-of-mouth?

But Kempinski hotels, in my experience deserves the title. OK, this is only the second I’ve stayed in, but it is reminiscent of the first one. I wish I could remember where it was, but the hotel did make an impression on me that I’ve carried for, I’d guess, at least 20 years.

After breakfast at the Hotel Schweizerhof (also 5 star; very nice). We walked across the street to board a motor vessel that took us for an hour’s ride to the other end of the lake and the town of Stanssad. There we boarded our bus, which took us to Andermatt and the Glacier Express. The train runs through the foothills and valleys just to the north of the primary Alps peaks. Final destination: the resort town (skiing and summer) of St. Moritz.

The whole day can be summarized in one word: scenery. Carter and I took pictures, of course. We had nice views of Mt. Pilatus and the Monch, Eiger, Jungfrau range from the boat. The opportunities on the train, despite spacious windows, was limited due to reflections. That turned out to be OK because it forced me to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than slaving over a hot camera.

One piece of historical trivia: On the bus ride Charlotte gave us a lecture on William Tell, the guy who shot the apple off his son’s head to prove is skill as a marksman. Some of us got the lecture, anyway. I knocked out for a brief nap and missed it. The point was, apparently, that we passed through the town where the legendary Tell lived and did the deed that made him famous.

At the time (early 14^th century) the area was ruled by the Hapsburg dynasty. A group of local Swiss leaders had formed a confederation to combat Hapsburg rule. Tell, using his crossbow, assassinated the reeve (overseer) employed by the local Hapsburg duke. That act strengthened the confederation. Tell is therefore seen as the driving force behind the ultimate formation of the Swiss federation that exists today. The victory wasn’t immediate, however. The Swiss Confederation was still fighting the Hapsburg Dynasty as late as 1848.

According to Wikipedia, the William Tell legend is hotly debated by historians but everyday Swiss believe it and rally around the legend. It’s remained popular around the world (e.g., the William Tell Overture). There are some unfortunate follow-ons to the Tell legend. John Wilkes Booth cited William Tell as his inspiration for overthrowing a despotic ruler (Lincoln). Adolph Hitler liked the story and had his girlfriend cast in the role of William Tell’s wife. He later had the show banned when a would-be assassin came after him.

Lunch was served on board, Charlotte, the guide, had the kids play German bingo (Carter’s team won) and the three of us played a round of Nert, the card game that is a full-body-contact sport. Nert and I are not simpatico but this time, for the first time in my Nert career, I actually won, rather than nailing down last place as has been my usual custom.

Dinner in the hotel was Grand. Carter said it was the best starter course on the trip (a fresh pasta dish with mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes). He cleaned up his 62 Swiss Franc ribeye (don’t worry, it was included in the trip price). Nana and I had a very nice rack of lamb. We were a table of 10, which gave us a chance to get to know some of our fellow travelers better.

Tomorrow involves some combination of gondola riding, mountain climbing and, optionally, mountain biking. The three of us opted out of the biking part so we’ll have the afternoon and evening to get into trouble on our own.

The pictures are out of order again. Maybe able to fix them tomorrow.

For the past few months, ever since the reality of this trip began to sink in, I would wake up in the middle of the night and think, “Will I do it? Will I be brave enough and physically capable of joining Carter in some of the adventures this trip includes?” Specifically, the rope course.

I’ve done a rope course before, 10 years ago in Mexico. Carter’s family was along on the trip but Carter, age 4, was too young to do the course. Ever-thoughtful Nana volunteered to stay behind with little Carter. (Lou, Carter’s other grandmother, wanted the honor but somehow Judy won out.)

Rope courses entail two activities: crossing from Point A to Point B using a suspended series of contraptions that swing in the breeze and require balanced, coordination and mental stamina to complete. Then, you hook your harness to a zip line and traverse from Point B to Point C where you encounter another rope challenge. There is a bit of balance, coordination and mental stamina required in zipping. One hand keeps you from rotating as you traverse the line and the other grasps the line to slow your speed as you approach Point C. Too much braking, and you have to pull yourself hand-over-hand to Point C. Too little breaking and you crash into Point C. Check out the picture of me to see the result of a crash landing. Here’s a link to a description of the course: https://www.pilatus.ch/en/discover/pilatus-rope-park/parkour.

Ten years ago, I didn’t score very high in the balance, coordination and bravery categories. Today, 10 years later, things haven’t gotten any better. But when Charlette said, “Raise your hand if you want to do Ropes, I looked at my poor little grandson (who now is officially a quarter-inch taller and 60 years younger) and said to myself, “You can’t let the little tyke do this All By Himself.” I raised my hand. Besides, I wanted the bragging rights.

Carter and I made a good team. He led the way except for one really scarry spot where he asked me to go first. I managed somehow but after watching me he hooked his zip line mechanism to the belaying line and zipped across rather than trying to duplicate my clumsy and scary technique.

In the end, I did it and didn’t fall or, worse yet, embarrass myself too terribly. We did two easy courses before thunder sounded and they closed the course. Our guide told us the second course we did was in fact quite difficult and I’ll take her word for it. Unfortunately, as happened when I rode on a camel in Egypt, I was too terrified to pull out my iPhone and shoot any pictures but I did live to tell you the tale.

While we did ropes, Nana did a mountain toboggan run that was lots of fun. It was a good thing because she would have died a thousand deaths watching us from the ground.

All this took place on Mt. Pilatus, a mountain overlooking Lucerne. The mountain is named for Pontius Pilate, you know, the guy who order the execution of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross two thousand years ago. Seems that Pontius committed suicide. No one wanted his body and it found its way to France and then somehow to a mountain in Switzerland where it was dumped in a lake. Mt Pilatus thereby, in local lore, was said to house not only the body but Pontius’s ghost. Local folk were prohibited from climbing the mountain for fear that such intrusion would wake the ghost, which would create mayhem – storms, floods, pestilence and whatever. It wasn’t until British mountaineers demonstrated that there was no lake on top of the mountain and that climbing it would lead to nothing evil.

We rode up in the steepest cog railway to near the summit where the Swiss have constructed a complex of viewing platforms, hiking trails, restaurants and cafeteria food services and a hotel. We spent a couple of hours hiking to nearby peaks on the mountain and had lunch. Carter did some more photography using the telephoto lens, specializing on bird pictures. Then, we descended about half—way down to another stop in a spacious gondola to the ropes course complex and later went the rest of the way down in a four-person gondola.

Before leaving for Mt. Pilatus, we walked a short distance to the Lion of Lucerne, a carving in the side of a former quarry that commemorates the death of 1,000 Swiss mercenaries who signed up to fight on the wrong side of the French Revolution at the end of the 18^th century. In medieval times people of Lucerne were extremely poor so the men hired themselves out as mercenary fighters for the French and Italian and other kings. That came to an end with this terrible loss. Today, it is against Swiss law for a Swiss citizen to serve as a mercenary. The Swiss Guard who protect the Pope at the Vatican are the only exception.

Now we’re chilling in our hotel rooms. It’s raining and thundering. We were lucky today; the clouds didn’t sock in the summit until we were ready for lunch and the rain didn’t start until I was ready to cry Uncle. Carter and I spotted an Italian restaurant on the river not far from our hotel and we even have a bead on an ice cream stand between here and there. The rain is supposed to let up by 8 PM.

Tomorrow, we have a boat ride on Lake Lucerne and then take the five-hour Glacial Express to St. Moritz.

The rain actually quit by 6 PM and we really enjoyed the Italian food (a guy can only take so much wienerschnitzel, bratwurst and potatoes). We took a nice walk along Lake Lucerne before hitting the gelato stand nearby.

I’m off the clock, tour guide wise. We’re sitting in our hotel in Lucerne and it’s all up to Charlotte, the Tauck tour guide to figure out which train station is which. We’re meeting in a few minutes for a brief walking tour and then the welcome session starting at 6 PM. It’s always interesting to meet the folks with whom we’ll be spending the next week.

Today went without a hitch, logistically speaking. We woke up at 6 AM to make the 7:15 AM Eiger Express gondola up the mountain. The gondola takes us about halfway up the hill to the Eiger glacier, a 15-minute ride. There we transferred to the Jungfrau railway, a true railroad that took us to the Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe. (You have to watch the folks over here. Just about everything is the largest/highest/longest whatever in Switzerland/Europe/World.) Junfraujoch refers to the saddle that connects two mountain peaks: the Munsch and the Junfrau. 

We had nice views in the gondola but, somewhat to my disappointment, the Jungfrau Railway is drilled entirely into the side of the mountain. It runs through the Eiger and Munsch mountains. Nap time. Nothing to see. The Swiss have a thing about drilling holes in the ground for tunnels. The road from Lucerne down to Grindelwald had a bunch. The amazing thing is that the original railroad was constructed in 1890s pretty much by pick, shovel and wheelbarrow and the occasional stick of dynamite, I suppose. Today’s railroad is thoroughly modern. The Eiger Express, an overgrown ski lift but really fast and really nice, is brand new.

At the top there are a number of activities available. We walked through a system of tunnels, stairwells and the occasional elevator. The temperature indoors was warm enough; outside the thermometer read 3 degrees Celsius, about 37 degrees back home. Here’s what we did:

• We had a coffee shop lunch first thing, which gave us the first nourishment of the day and a chance to sit and catch our breath. At 11,300 feet breath was hard to come by. We all experienced dizziness and shortness of breath, especially Nana and I.
• We visited the Sphynx, a platform with views of the Jungfrau Mountain proper and the Aletsch glacier the largest/longest (depends on who you talk to) in Europe. See the pictures.
• We walked up a slight incline (pant, pant) to the start of a snow packed trail leading to the Monchsjoch Hut, the highest altitude serviced hut in Switzerland. Carter started up the trail but when he got ¾ of the way there he dropped his water bottle, which rolled down a long downhill section of the trail. He retrieved it but, feeling a headache coming on, decided he’d done enough and returned.
• We toured the Ice Place that sports not only ice sculpture, but a large network of caves and passageways made entirely of smooth ice. 
• By then Carter was feeling it: altitude sickness was our diagnosis. We tried a little cafeteria food but that wasn’t working so we called an audible and rushed to catch the 11:47 train down.
• Carter was somewhat improved, but still with a headache. The good news was that our driver was in town so within 15 minutes we were on our way back to Lucerne, where we arrived around 3 PM.

But despite the issues we had a great experience in the heart of the Swiss Alps.

Our Tauck tour group sent us out on a city walking tour to see the old parts of this 80,000-person town. Lake Lucerne is, like most European cities, is medieval for the most part. We walked across a wooden bridge, originally constructed in the 12^th century, that formed a perimeter defense for the city. A section of it burned in the 1990s but has been restored. 

Lake Lucerne, and the river we crossed by bridge, is fed from glacial melt. Last year, the town suffered flooding from high waters. In fact, the damage to the bridge was so extensive because the water level was high and the fire boats couldn’t fit under another bridge to reach the scene. This year, the river is unusually low.

We attended a cocktail hour mixer affair. Turns out, a family of 15 are all from Winchester, MA, a town next to Melrose. Small world. There are 35 people in all, divided roughly equally between kids and adults. There are some Carter’s age but a number who are Esme and even Griffin’s age. 

Tomorrow we’re off to near-by Mt. Pilatus for a ride up on what is said to be the steepest cog railway in the world. We’re on the bus at 9 AM so we’ll avoid the crazy early morning schedule of the past few days.

Sorry, the pictures are out of order but it’s too late at night to fix ’em. Maybe later.

Jon the travel agent strikes again.

The plan was simple: catch the 5:40 AM from Bologna to Milan and the 10:05 from Milan to Lucerne. What could go wrong? The following:

1. I misremembered the train time. We arrived at the Bologna station at 4:55 for what I thought was the 5:20. Good thing; we needed the extra 20 minutes.
2. I failed to print all the tickets back home. Small problem, momentary confusion: I had the tickets on my phone.
3. There was absolutely no signage in the station as to where our train would depart or even if it would depart. Zip. Nada. Nuthin’.
4. In desperation, I went to a self-serve kiosk to see if our train even existed. The only train to Milan Centrale was scheduled for 5:28. Despite holding tickets I bought three new tickets for 46 Euros. My error was that we really wanted to go to the Milan Girabaldi station, not Centrale. In my panic state I failed to select the correct station. But in my defense, desperate times called for desperate measures. Miss the Milan-Lucerne train and this whole house of cards collapses. We miss the Jungfraujoch and are late for the start of Carter’s tour.
5. But wait, there’s no indication of what track the 5:28 was leaving from. A train pulls in. Eventually Carter saw that Milan was displayed in the long list that crawled across the train’s display. We struggled on with our nine pieces of baggage.
6. On board, I figure out my error. The good news is that the two stations are 10 minutes apart by taxi; we have two hours to do that and get some food.

But wait, there’s more.

7. We finally got on the Milan-Luzern train but the coach I had booked our seats in turned out to be the Family coach. One mom with three boys under five sat near us. The seat assignments got all mixed up but eventually we worked out a plan where Mom got to sit with the kids and we had three seats together with a table between us. We played Quist.
8. Even more: somewhere along the line the car filled with what we took to be football (soccer) fans. The car was packed; most of the newcomers had to stand. The noise was deafening from crying babies and cheering futbol partisans.

Well, it all worked out somehow. We had a very nice lunch in the train’s dining car. The hardest part was finding a toilet in Milan. There were two in the entire station. One was out of service with all fixtures taped up. The other ate my Euro without opening the door. Two other ladies failed as well. Carter was ready to find a train at the platform with more than 15 minutes before departure, jump aboard, do his, ahem, you know, and jump off before it left. I didn’t know how I’d explain failure to his folks, so I vetoed the idea but gave it A for creative problem solving. We finally found a restaurant outside the station.

Our DayTrip driver met us at the Lucerne station and off we went to Grindelwald where tomorrow we’ll catch the Eiger Express to the “Top of Europe” at the Jungfraujoch.

We grabbed a burger, bratwurst, and some sort of pork steak at a café here at the hotel. Hit the spot. We scouted out the Eiger Express station, walked around for a bit admiring the scenery and then played some ping pong where, I’m pleased to say, the elderly players stood their ground quite admirably against the young whippersnapper.

All day we traveled through the lower elevations of the Alps. Grindelwald is set in a valley with gorgeous views of the mountains. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Tomorrow we’ll get closeup views of some of the summits.

Today was the culmination of 10 years of thinking and planning: Carter’s childhood desire to see where Italian sports cars are produced. We visited three car brands: Pagani, Lamborghini and Ferrari, all located in the Moderna and Maranello region, about an hour’s drive back toward Milan.

On the way there our guide told us a few interesting facts:

• Bologna, as we had already observed, is known for its porticos – the arched covers that shade the sidewalk and protect from rain. Bologna has 50 km of porticos, the most in (choose one, I forget: Italy, Europe, the world). It’s a great aesthetic and practical innovation that makes Bologna special.
• The countryside we passed was a mixture of industrial and farming enterprises. Wheat, corn and alfalfa are grown here. The alfalfa is especially important: it’s used to feed the cows that produce the milk from which parmesan cheese is made, a regional specialty. Our train from/to Milan passes through the town of Parma. Fruit, including apples, peaches, pears and Lambrusco grapes are also raised here.

The Pagani tour was first. Pagani is unique in that it’s independently owned (Lamborghini is Audi and Ferrari is Fiat). They produce about 50 cars per year with a workforce of 157, 70 or so of whom do factory work. A stripped-down model goes for 3 million euros. Order-to-delivery takes two years, including multiple consultations with clients to customize their car’s design. There are lots of stories about cars sold at auction for more than 10 million euros.

Pagani was the only place that allowed us onto the factory floor. Many components come from suppliers. Mercedes makes engines to Pagani’s specs. A big part of Pagani’s value add is carbon fiber composite body parts that are fabricated in large autoclaves on site. Every component carries the Pagani stamp. The least expensive part, a screw or bolt or something, costs 60 euros.

Pagani vehicles are indeed beautiful machines. See the pictures. Not being a famous movie star or sports figures I’m probably not in their target market.

Our tour included a very nice lunch: two homemade pasta dishes, breads, local salami and a selection of three pastries for dessert. We each sampled all three and each came up with a different favorite.

Lamborghini was next and while it lacked a factory tour it had an interesting display of cars, especially for Carter. Nana and I are borderline clueless when it comes to models and features and history and whatnot, but Carter knows as much about cars as Griffin knows about football.

The factory is shut down for a year or more as they retool and reconfigure the line for the next model. They change models once every 10 years. The next iteration will include, gasp, a hybrid model.

The really great thing about the Lambo visit was that Carter took my camera from around my neck and insisted on taking all the pictures. It left me free to “enjoy the moment” and watch Carter take pictures from angles and compositions that interested him. You can see the results of his work in today’s picture gallery. Carter’s start after the picture of Carter and our guide.

Finally, Ferrari. Ferrari has two car focuses: roadsters that real people drive (including a few models that can be used as race cars) and Formula One cars that are exclusively racing cars. Ferrari cars have run in every Formula One race for the past 70 years and has won a ton.

We arranged for Carter to spend 20 minutes in a Formula One simulator, driving on a real track at speeds of up to 180 mph. It was fun to watch and even more fun to do. Carter took a couple of laps to figure out how to shift gears and learn the layout of the track. Once he got the hang of it, he did well. His best lap time was only 12 seconds from qualifying for the top 10 simulator times. The biggest challenge seemed to be figuring out how to slow down sufficiently to make turns that required speeds well under 50 mph to navigate without spinning out and hitting the wall.

The Ferrari Museum itself was somewhat of a disappointment. Too much of a museum for tourists attracted by the famous Ferrari name and not enough display aimed at car lovers as was the case for Pagani and Lamborghini.

Now we’re chilling in the room and getting ready for our last Italian meal. Tomorrow we’ll be stuck with whatever Swiss food we can scrounge up. Fondu and chocolate, anyone?

Dinner worked out just fine. Pizza and pasta followed by, you guessed it, our last Italian gelato.