DISCLAIMER : I appoloize for any inconviences caused by my lack of abilty to spell or write in complete sentances. However, I'm in the middle of my vacation and I'm having too much fun to take the time to correct for these short comings.

Last updated 9/03/01

September 2 - Lucern

Today we had free time until 5:00, so a large group (thank you Dorrie & Sharon for organizing this expedition) went for a boat ride on the lake, then a cog railway up to Pilatus (a local mountain peak). Kathy and Julie and I opted to walk to the boat terminal. Almost everywhere in Lucern is a photo opportunity.
	I took several pictures of the mountains from the lake. As I mentioned yesterday, my camera lens is not big enough to do justice to the scenery, but this kind of gives you the idea.
After about an hour and a half on the boat, we took a very steep cog railway up to the top of Pilatus. I tried to take pictures showing the steepness of the railway, but the clouds were rolling in and occluded a lot of good shots. Here's a quaint gully towards the top of the mountain with some cool rocks in it. (It's hard to see through the clouds, but there're there.)
For a few minutes, the clouds cleared at the top of the mountain and I got this picture. There was a really cool trail that went all around the peek. With the cloud cover, it was a pretty spooky walk. I could see the trail and the mountain and nothing else. The mountain dropped away so fast, that there was nothing to see but cloud. We could hear cowbells not too far below us, but we couldn't see the cows.
	After hanging out on the mountaintop for a little while, we rode a gondola down the other side of the mountain. Once we got below the clouds, there were some beautiful views of the lake and of Lucern.

Today was a workday. We had our final concert in the new Lucern concert hall. This is a view from the stage. The hall is very modern, both inside and out. It's also very tall. You can see the first balcony above the windows in the middle of the picture, and then the second balcony is behind and above that. I liked the acoustic, but it wasn't as friendly as the Lubeck hall. Again, I have no idea of how it actually read in the hall.

Doing the concert for the last time was kind of sad. I have become accustomed to this music as a part of my daily life. Some how the final applause for those pieces marked the end of something special.