Breakfast this morning was a genuine “continental breakfast” of cold meats, cheese, croissants, cereal and coffee ( and tea )

We headed onto the bus and off to the alps. Sadly the weather gods were not with us and did could not see the view at all :(. We travelled to the top of the mountain firstly on a cable pulled train , then brand new open air cable car . Because of the fog it didn’t seem high because you could not see the ground.

Traveling up the mountain we passed by farms with cows wearing their bells. What a noise! It is amazing the cows are not deaf

At the top was a walk around the peak but again sadly no view. ( good excuse to come back ). Also at the top, Bern had arranged an Alpenhorn for us to try, I actually managed to a decent sound out of it :). Thank you high school music for showing me how to blow a trumpet :-). You can see a video of me blowing the horn in this post. It does sound like a dying moose but I got sound 😉

Back down the mountain and we travelled back to Lucerne on a lake cruise. The captain pointed out interesting points along the way

After the cruise we had a few hours free to explore the city and have lunch. Found a great market stall and bought some cheese and a beautiful bread roll and had a relaxing lunch by the river.

We were meant to have the whole afternoon free, but Bern was most excited that she had a new experience for us.

Just out of the city is a secret WW2 bunker built inside a mountain Cows. It was only decommissioned by the army in 1995 and the Swiss have preserved it as a museum. Usually they only open it on Friday evenings with tours on German. She (as a senior guide with Trafalgar ) has convinced them to allow groups to come as a trial . We are the first group. We have all promised to be on our very best behavior 🙂

WOW!!! The Festung Vitznau was amazing. The entire facility is as it was in 1943. The “festungs” or fortresses were built to defend Switzerland from the Germans who had them surrounded on all sides. I could not begin to explain the whole experience. It was truly awesome in the way the word awesome should be used. The entire tour agreed it would be a fabulous addition to the Trafalgar tour itinerary. I will be watching to see if Bern manages to get it included. I really hope she does, as the Swiss story is one that very few people know about. One of our older gentlemen guests thanked our Swiss guide for the tour and said we all just thought the Swiss didn’t want to fight. These successful secret fortresses deserve to have their story told. If you can read German you can visit the website at www.festung-vitznau.ch

After the fortress we were back to the hotel for an included dinner of soup, chicken and vege and ice cream for dessert

We all turned in for an early night ready for Lichtenstein and Austria tomorrow .

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