In order to discover a bit more of Switzerland and to spend a nice day with friends, we packed our daypacks with warm clothes, a picnic and some elaborate beverages and went to Vitznau to go up the Rigi. (When I say daypacks it means the following allocation: rainjacket, hat and scarf for me, rainjacket for Karsten. Lunch, drinks and camera. For the little one: lunch, water bottle, rice crackers, bread with butter, fruits. Diapers, wet tissues, sunscreen, waterproofed trousers, winter jacket, normal jacket, gloves, hat, scarf, woolen socks, a lighter hat, a complete new outfit in case the diaper doesn’t hold (or for any unforeseen circumstances). A book, a rattle and a pacifier (to play with). The stroller. The car seat. Oh, and because we finally wanted to try it out, but weren’t sure how long she can already sit in it: the baby pack (very handy and stable baby carrier for the back, also known in German as Kraxe :-)).

With all of that and our friends in the rental car, we went to the Vierwaldstätter See, parked the car and took the little cog railway up the mountain. The Rigi (1797 m) is a well-known mountain surrounded by several lakes with a beautiful view over the Alpes. Tourism started early here, already Goethe, William Turner and Mark Twain appreciated the view, as well as Queen Victoria of England. And now us…

The train started in Vitznau with beautiful sunshine and a great view over the lake (and a lot of Chinese tourists taking pictures of the little one admiring the view).

Well, somehow that changed after a while. When we got off the train a bit below the top, we found ourselves in thick fog. The trees and even the grass were covered with several inches of ice and whenever I stopped to take a picture, the others were already out of sight after a few meters. At one point the fog was so thick that we could hear the train passing by, but we only saw an outline when it was right next to us. And although we felt quite warm pushing the stroller (and ourselves) up the mountain, I was glad I took all the warm stuff for the little one with us. One can’t say we don’t learn from mistakes! 🙂

The view from the top was…well…special!

After the little one had lunch, we started to walk down again, and finally, after a while, the fog cleared a bit and the sun came through, which looked amazing (and resulted in almost a cloudburst since all the ice on the trees melted at once). The way downhill was pleasant, we had picnic in between and enjoyed the landscape. The baby pack proofed to be very handy as the path we chose was an anti-stroller path over hill and dale, and most of the time the little one was relatively quiet (which might have been because of the height, so it was actually good that we didn’t spend much time at the top).

We were down in Vitznau around 5 o’clock – the lake presented itself again with sunshine and glittering, crystal clear water – and back home around 1.5 hours later where the little one (and ourselves) fell into our beds shortly after.

Karsten’s conclusion: that almost felt like being on holiday! So, all in all a great day trip, definitely worth repeating!