A DAY ON MOUNT STANSERHORN

On our last full day we decided to take to the mountains again.  The three most popular mountains are Mount Pilatus, Mount Rigi and Mount Titlis.  However, we chose to get to the top of the Mount Stanserhorn travelling by train, funicular and finally a cable car.  The plan was then to walk down to connect with another smaller cable car to get us down to catch the train back to Lucerne.

The narrow gauge Zentralbahn runs from Lucerne to the station of Stans at the foot of the mountain,  The line continues to Engleberg, which is the end of the line and the starting point to get to Mount Titlis. The region is shown on the map below and includes the walking trail we took for the downhill section.

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Leaving the station at Stans it was a short walk to the funicular.  It was the usual one up and one down system on a single track with one passing loop.  

 

The start of the climb with our pulling cable lying on the track

Passing the other car 

There used to be three funiculars connecting Stans to the top of the Stanserhorn (1998 metres).  The first section was the one we used, rising from Stans at 450 metres to Kalti at 714 metres at a gradient of 17%.  The next section used to run to a transfer station at 1221 metres at a gradient of 52.5% and there was a final section on an S shaped route to the top at a 63% average gradient at a height of 1888 metres. In 1974 a storm demolished the third section plus the winding engine at the top and it was abandoned although you can still see remnants.  A cable car replaced these funiculars and in 2012 a brand new revolutionary cable car was introduced - the Cabrio Bahn.  This is a double deck carriage with an open top roof.

As is always the case in Switzerland everything is timed to make connections easy and we walked straight onto the Cabrio Bahn. 

Passing the other cable car

Looking back down

Lake Lucerne from the summit of the Stanserhorn

It was cool and windy

We didn't stay too long at the summit and started our way down.  The path was reasonable for most of the first part which was a gentle downhill along a ridge, which you can see on the map.  Sorry the map isn't a bit larger  This took us to a very small settlement at Blatti.  The going got a bit more difficult from there on as it was down the side of the ridge, quite steep in parts but we were committed and had to carry on.  We met a few cows en route but they gave us no problems.

These two followed us for a while

This one couldn't have cared less as we passed by, it had the mandatory bell around the neck

We were making for this valley where we believed there was another cable car

We reached the end of our path at the village of Wiesnberg where there was a small cafe where we had some lunch.  Between us we had enough language to order some food and found out that there was indeed a small cable car just below the restaurant.  The upper end was in a little unattended shed.  We were told there would be a telephone which we could use to call up the person at the bottom.  Sure enough inside the tiny car we found the phone and managed to get it across that there were two of us sitting inside.  To our relief the cable car started to move down off the hillside and finally we reached the bottom station where we paid the man and found we were right by the station on the Zentralbahn, the next one up from Stans, Dallenwill.  We didn't have to wait long to get the train back to Lucerne. 

Leaving the top station on the cable car

On the way down

Many winding paths and roads

TRAVELLING HOME THROUGH MUNICH

We had the morning in Lucerne before we caught the train to Zurich wHere we connected with the train to Munich.  We had booked a hotel just across from the main railway station.  The next morning we had another excellent breakfast and had enough time to look around the older centre of Munich before we needed to catch the train out to the airport.

The Rathaus  (New Town Hall) in the Marienplatz

Rathaus-Glockenspiel

The Rathaus-Glockenspiel of Munich is a tourist attraction in the Marienplatz dates from 1908. Every day at 11 a.m. it chimes and re-enacts two stories from the 16th century. It consists of 43 bells and 32 life-sized figures. The top half of the Glockenspiel tells the story of the marriage of the local Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lorraine.  In honour of the happy couple there is a joust with life-sized knights on horseback representing Bavaria  and Lothringen.   We were lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time to see it in action.

We reached to airport in good time to catch our Lufthansa flight direct to Vancouver and then the old faithful Central Mountain Air to Comox.

One special plane was in a gate near our plane, one of the new Boeing 787 of Qatar Airlines.

Boeing 787 of Qatar Airlines