Our adventure has moved to the Swiss Alps, but first we had to get there. We caught a train from Venice to Zurich. It had been a hot day in Vencice, and the night air was warm as well. We got on our train and settled into our little cabin. We were on the top couchette and it was HOT!! We were ready for the air conditioner to kick on. Once we were on our way, the cabin started cooling off, but as science has proven, warm air rises, and we can attest to that!! It was like there was a barrier between the rest of the cabin and our little area. We just remained motionless, sweating and hoping for it to either cool down, or for us to fall asleep. We tried to fan the cool air from the bottom half of the cabin to the top, but once we stopped, it was unbearable again. Katina kept saying, "I know what hell is. It is a train ride from Venice to Zurich!" It was like we were in an inferno. My clothes were drenched, and I felt completely icky!! Then the air conditioner shut off all together. We just thought that we had been hot!!! We asked the conductor if there was a compartment where there were two bottom couchettes open, and there was so he moved us. The air conditioners were not running throughout the entire train, but there were less bodies in this compartment, and we were on the bottom. At about 5 am the air conditioner was fixed and the train cooled off, and we were able to sleep for a couple of hours before we arrived.

When we woke up, we were greeted with a view of beautiful mountains. When we stopped, we found a train going to Lucerne that was leaving in 7 minutes. We ran to the platform (which isnīt easy with a huge backpack) and jumped onto the train. We made it just in time. The journey was beautiful. I love the scenery that Switzerland offers!! It is the prettiest country I have ever seen. Some day I will have a little Swiss cottage that I can retreat to (hopefully)!! When we arrived in Lucerne we got off the train and were struck by a burst of hot air. What happened to the cool Swiss air that I expected?! We headed to our hostel, tried to shower off as much as possible in the sink, and then we decided to walk around the neighborhiood for a while until we could check in. It was so nice to finally see houses and grass. All of the yards had beautiful flowerbeds filled with bright flowers. We made our way back to the hostel, had a little picnic of olive pate and crackers. We finally checked in and took a nap. When we awoke we had received that cool air I had wanted, along with a huge hail storm. Some trees were actually uprooted!! We decided to stay inside instead of brave the weather, and hoped to do more the following day, which we did.

We took a tour of Lucerne, which was nice, but I have enjoyed our other tours more. Our tour guide would tell is the information in English and then repeat it in German so we were only benefitting half of the time, and didn't get to see as much as I had hoped. I thought that we should have only had to pay half of the fee, but I don't think they would have agreed with me. After the tour we went to a fortress wall and climbed up in the towers. Those were some tall stairs. I am so glad it wasn't my job to climb those every day to go to work. I was really sore the next day from those stairs, but the view was worth it (the breeze felt nice also)!! We had planned to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus, but it was too cloudy, so we wouldn't have seen very much, and it wouldn't have been economical under those circumstances. We just poked around the town for the rest of the day, and got ready to go to Interlaken.

The train ride to Interlaken was the best yet!! We saw several little villages nestled in the mountains. There were streams and lakes and little Swiss cottages. It was wonderful!! I wish that I could have captured all that I saw because it was so beautiful. It almost didn't seem real, but it was. We arrived to sunny Interlaken and went to Balmer's Herberge where we were going to stay. It was nuts! It was like a huge frat party. People were sunning, sleeping in hammocks, and drinking tons of beer. We checked in and left. We walked around the town and sat by a neat little river. We had a little picnic there and fed some swans bits of our bread and apples (we discovered that they don't really care for oranges). Thw water in Switzerland is the most amazing color. It is a bright blue green. I have never seen anything that color in my life. It was so beautiful. We sat by the river soaking up the sun, the scenery, and just relaxing. We found a restaurant for dinner and had meat fondue. It was yummy and fun, too. We walked around a little longer and sat in a beautiful garden before we headed in.

When we woke up it was raining. I was so upset because we were going to hike!! We went to the store to get food for our lunch, hoping the sun would break through and chase away the clouds. It didn't work, but it did stop raining. We found a trail and started hiking. I took us an hour round trip, and it was so much fun. It wasn't muddy at all, and that was my main concern. I was ready for another trail, and had a much longer one in mind. We decided to try Harder Kulm. It was 4134 ft straight up, so we had our work cut out for us. We hiked for quite a while and I don't think that we were ever on the trail because we ended up back at the bottom instead of the top. We decided to give up and find a place to eat when we stumbled upon the trailhead. We went up a little bit, had a little picnic on a bench, and started up. We weren't going to hike the entire trail because it takes 2 1/2 hours, and we were beginning to get tired, but the more we hiked, the more excited I got. We got quite a ways up and just never turned around. I think that in the back of Katina's mind there was probable a plot to throw me off of the mountain for getting her into such a long hike. I don't think either of us realized how challenging it would be, but I loved every second of it!! When we got up to the top we were hot, sweaty, and exhausted, but the view was incredible and we had just climbed the Swiss Alps!!! (We did take the tram down. We were way to exhausted to try to climb back down.) We went back to the hostel to shower. We had already checked out, but you have to pay for hot water in the showers so we felt justified in using them! It felt nice to be clean after getting all nasty from hiking. We went to the store and got food for dinner, and waited for our train. We were on our way to Vienna (and this time we requested the bottom couchettes)!!

Next time you visit you can read about the tales of Austria and Hungary (and maybe more, depending on where I find the next Cybercafe!)

July 31, 1998