Our Final Stop: Lausanne

For our final stop on this month long journey we spent about a week in Lausanne, Switzerland. We had been her once before and enjoyed relaxing on the water and eating the most delicious pizza in the world, and I have to admit it was that pizza that pulled me back there. We are leaving for our next trip on Monday so I wanted to quickly pump out this post so I could get going on our next journey when we arrive.

When our train arrived and we got situated at the hotel our first stop was the pizza place for some dinner. We had been dreaming about it for so long so we just had to get some.

All of the pizzas have names that refer to people. Politicians, music artists, etc. Don't know what these two were called.

Enough pictures... Chowing down.

We didn't get enough of the pizza that we got it to go for our boat ride the next morning/afternoon.

Mark actually goes in the water. I do not.

The pizza place, Boccalino. The service is horrible, but that's ok.

We also visited the Olympic Museum that is in Lausanne. It is the home of the olympic committee. It's especially cool to see all the torches from all the years and also what the medals looked like since the beginning.

Here are some snapshots from various places around Lausanne.

On one of our days we figured out how to get passes for their bikeshare system and went for a ride around. It was beautiful and fun to see other parts of Lausanne besides the downtown and by the water.

Funnest. Playground. Ever. That seesaw was super fun as was the spinny thing. We sat on the seesaw and talked for about half an hour going up and down.

On our way back to the hotel we had to find some food because we were starving, but a little sick of pizza. :) We stopped at this restaurant along a dock/pier and had some of the most delicious pasta we've ever had. Mark's, pictured in the front, was asparagus ravioli with a delicious cream sauce and bits of asparagus. Mine was the best gnocchi with cream sauce and GOOD prosciutto.

Since Lausanne is not that far from Geneva we took the train out there and spent the afternoon.

On our way to Geneva.

After we got back we checked out the latin festival that was happening near our hotel and ate some paella and had mint mojitos along the water. Afterwards we ventured over to the fair and while we did not ride that beast of a machine we did ride some fun rides. I hate roller coasters and other such things, but we even rode a skinny ride which Mark did not like.

Our final day we had time to go out on the boat one last time and we stayed out for a long time and ventured further out than we have ever gone. It was peaceful, beautiful, and very relaxing.

Ready to go home, but knowing we would miss being in Europe, we awaited boarding the new A380 which had actually started its first commercial flights while we were in Europe. There are several camera angles which you can view such as from the nose, from the top of the tail, a view below, etc. It was very fun to watch take-off and landing.

Mt. Pilatus

Mt. Pilatus is situated above Lucerne at 2,128m (6,982ft.) and is a beautiful sight to behold. Mark's Mom suggested we go here and boy was it quite an experience. There are some different ways to get up there, but the hotel suggested we go the route of taking the bus to where the gondolas lift off and returning via the cog railway and boat. The gondola ride was fun (a little frightening at first) and it dropped you off at a midway point where you could ride the longest summer toboggan ride which we of course did (1,350m or 0.88miles) and/or a cool obstacle/zip lining course. Or you could just take the second gondola up to the top.

Taking off!

There were lots of herds(?) of goats on the hillside. And along the ride you could see the brave/fit people who would climb up!

The second gondola to the top.

You can see the toboggan winding down here. 

I didn't take any video going down, but I found a video online from someone else. If you skip to about a minute in to this video you can see what it was like to go down!!!

Mark on the toboggan.

To get back to the top there is a hook that attaches to your toboggan and pulls you up. A good view along the way!

Loads of butterflies.

After riding the toboggan several times we finally made our way to the gondolas and continued the last leg of the journey up to the top. At the top there is a hotel, some places to eat, and... I think that's about it. The view is spectacular so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

The second gondola. 

Very steep...

The view at the top.

The cog railway that we took to get down. It is the steepest cog railway in the world and I believe it!

That mountain peak on the left is the one we saw on our bike ride out to Horw.

To get back down we took the cog railway which is the steepest cog railway in the world.

Going down!

Pretty flowers along the way. And more good views.

When we made our way back down to sea level we apprehensively went to see about catching that boat back to the city center because it was going to take about an hour or more and there was a train station right there at the bottom. The last boat had already left so we were happy to take the train which only took about 15 minutes. At the train station there was a vending machine selling pregnancy tests and other necessities!