Lucerne - Mt. Titlis

Lucerne – Mt. Titlis

Faceless lady in Engleberg

We went to Mt. Titlis today, our first excursion into the Alps.  To get there we had to catch a fifty minute train ride from Lucerne to Engleberg, a small alpine town which services the snow fields.  There are many hotels here so it must be very busy in the ski season.  Engleberg means ‘place of angels’ which becomes apparent when you begin to notice lots of human-sized, almost face-less angels appearing in gardens and on balconies.  Apparently there are about 84 of them throughout the town. Those who know of my faceless angel collection will understand how excited I was to see them.

There was a free bus from the station to the cable-car station, where we caught the first of several lifts to the top of Titlis.  There were several large bus groups lining up as we arrived here.  We shared our car with two lively Chinese ladies who were very loquacious and chirpy, albeit in Chinese.  One of them, Tena, haltingly introduced herself to us in her limited English.  She was so friendly we could have just hugged her. The clouds were low so visibility was minimal once we started to ascend.

First section of chair lift 

At Trűbsee, we changed to a large cable-car (holds 80 people) which was very crowded with a large group. One more level up, we changed to another cable-car which rotated 360°.  We could see glimpses of ice and rock on the mountain.  The ice was dirty as it was melting and sand and rock were inter-mingled.

Titlis has a glacier and there were a number of activities to do when we reached the top. There was an ice cave carved into the glacier, and it was very cold inside there (0 to -1^oC).  It was amazing to know that there was 10 feet of ice above us (more than 20metres in winter) and the top of the glacier is constantly moving. 

Outside, we went on a ski-lift, the high flyer which was fun to do.  This took us down to a terrace where we had a look around and then we flew back up to the top.  On the terrace we walked in the snow which was very soft and hard going.  Doug decided to have a go at tobogganing which was free but there was a long wait for a turn.  After he reached the bottom, there was a hard climb in the snow back to the top. You needed to be quite fit to do this and there were a number of people who weren’t and they held up the process. It was quite hot standing in the sunshine, and the light was reflecting off the snow was glaringly bright and hurt the eyes.  Fortunately, both our glasses had transition lenses so the impact on our eyes was minimal.

'Cliff walk' suspension bridge

On our return journey we stopped at Trűbsee and we ate in the restaurant there, looking out onto the mountain.  The clouds had closed in again and it was gently raining so was not pleasant to be outside.  We shared our cable-car with a young Indian couple and friend who were quite interesting to chat with.  With time to spare, we walked back to the train station through Engleberg, noticing angels on our way.

Engleberg

Back in Lucerne, we walked from the station to the Kappeellbrűcke (Chapel) Bridge, a timber bridge for which Lucerne is famous and walked across it.  All along the sides of the bridge are planters filled with flowering annuals, a very pretty highlight.  We wandered through the old town and its squares and back across another old timber bridge which was fascinating to see as it had arched timbers.

Kappeellbrucke Bridge

Back at our Hotel Cascada we dined in the hotel restaurant which had a tapas bar.  The shared ‘tapas’ was yummy as was the hot chocolate cake with four tasting sized sorbets for dessert.