Zurich has always impressed me with all things winter and cold most of the time, which to many, can be rather depressing. I was once too, caught with such perception, hence all my sight-seeing aspirations would always be put on hold.
Strangely, not this time around. Perhaps, due to the coax of a perfect travelling buddy as a nice company. Freshly from touching down, we headed straight to a year-round snow-capped mountain. Despite only less than two hours notice to join the tour, we still able to make it as we were assured. It must be the efficiency and strong relationship between the hotel and the tour operators there.
Rushing our guts out, we still managed to pack some food to survive a two-hour bus ride to the mountains. Upon boarding the almost-full bus with nationalities of all sorts, we found a two-seater at the rear starboard side and began munching our packed goodies. Half-way through our pure gastronomic act of nourishing our hungry pangs, Christina, our gutsy and very Swiss tour guide walked towards us and forbidden us from eating further. She also didn’t fail to make us feel rather uncomfortable by reminding us again through the passenger-address (PA) as if we will resume eating behind her back. Well, we understand her intention of keeping the bus squeaky clean, but after a 13-hour flight with minimum food, our bodies are prone to gastric. If only they have a notice somewhere as we would have finished our emmental and tomato sandwich and chocolate Danish before we board. Anyway, we just learned our first lesson of Swiss social etiquette. We should be more careful next time.
After about one and a half hour into the journey, and with Christina’s Swiss-German accented English voice constantly on the PA like most good tour guide, trying to educate us on our new surroundings, we finally reached Luzern. We were told that we will be spending some time there after our visit to the mountains. As our main goal is to see snow in summer, we didn’t care much of Luzern.
Soon, we finally made it to the base! We were told that the cable car ride will take about 45 minutes and Christina tirelessly reminded us to be back to the base punctually so that we can all be on time for our schedule back to Zurich.
Our first cable car ride took us to Engelberg, where we still see greenery everywhere. Then, we boarded the world’s first revolving cable car and our ooos and ahhs began to take precedent. For the first time, our surrounding view is nothing but the whiteness of snow!
Our excitement grew even further when we stepped into the sea of whiteness and heading for some snow fun activities. We headed to the Glacier Cave as our first stop and I was amazed by the icy coldness akin to living in an igloo. You can also play your country’s national anthem by the push of a button! I obviously pushed for Malaysia’s. Within seconds, the whole icy cave was filled with Negaraku and my heart felt patriotic in this foreign land. Obviously, both the countries do share some really good bilateral relations.
Our tickets entitled us to a four-minute Ice Flyer (another cable car) ride to the Glacier Park. The Ice Flyer was quite intimidating for some but to me, I was glad to be hung high up in the air with magnificent views. Our legs were just hanging and your heart does feel like dropping when you are so exposed to the openness of such altitude.
Before we decided to respect Christina’s insistent on punctuality, we thought, we should grab a bite first since we are not allowed to eat in the bus. We ordered French fries, tomato soup and hot chocolate in the pizzeria. All were so heavenly in taste! The fries are the best I’ve tasted so far! With mayonnaise and ketchup, it reminded me of Amsterdam’s famous Pomme Frites! We also have two extra packet of mayo without needing to pay CH 0.50 for each. What a generous cashier we had that day!
On our way down from Mount Titlis, we were just continuously confronted by such breath-taking views of Switzerland. We also have just experienced the amazing change from where the clouds used to be below us is now above us. With the wind-chimes-like sound of the cow bells worn by the cattles in the farm below our feet, we thought, how lucky we are, to have made such a great feat to the top at 10,000 ft high...
