A Cloud-Covered Piz Gloria

A decal attached to each window pane at the restaurant.

Yes, I made it up to Piz Gloria, the revolving restaurant built on the Schilthorn summit where the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed. I travelled up with Julie, our head cook, and we met others from Oak Hall for lunch or hot drinks in the restaurant. We hoped that the restaurant would be above the clouds but it was completely surrounded so the view from the restaurant windows was a sea of white. Oh, except for a few minutes when a few nearby peaks appeared and then promptly disappeared.

The restaurant menu included things like, "James Bond Spaghetti" and a "Bond Girl's Special" drink which was sparkling wine with elderflower syrup. All of the menu prices were insanely high but for some bizarre reason we were willing to pay the prices simply because a Bond movie was filmed there. For example, ice cream cost three Swiss francs for one small scoop, bottled water or a mug of hot chocolate cost four francs, and a basic entree cost over twenty francs with meat entrees passing thirty francs (the franc and Canadian dollar are almost on par).

Ridiculous socks in the gift shop featuring an oozing bowl of cheese fondue. Just what I always wanted.

Snow stuck to the sides of the railings on the deck outside Piz Gloria.

A very cold Swiss flag.

The closest I'll ever come to being a Bond girl.
I may not have the outfit or loose morals, but anybody can say, "Oh, James" and I had the right location for an hour or two.

Me and Robyn at Piz Gloria.
See all those incredible mountains in the background?
Neither did we.

Aimee; a truly hilarious woman.

Marietjie; met her and Rene on the coach ride and loved spending time with them.
(Don't ask me how to pronounce her name - we all just called her "Marie".)

A bunch of the Oak Hall gang crammed in a gondola on our way down from Schilthorn.

We've had quite a high number of serious injuries this week, including a sliced-open knee (requiring surgery and five days in the hospital), a fractured ankle, and a broken wrist. Robyn broke her wrist yesterday but met us at the restaurant for lunch today and we went for a walk in Murren with Rene after lunch. My knee is still causing pain but I can walk around if I take it slow and careful. Sarah, one of my roommates, is a physiotherapist so she took a look at my knee, found the affected muscle, and gave me some exercises to work on it so hopefully it'll feel better soon.

The coloured eggs at the grocer confused and amused us.

You know all those pictures of wooden, shuttered houses in the Swiss Alps that make you think, "I wonder where I could find a place like that?" All the houses look like that.

A dog that made me smile.

Gondola to Mannlichen

Rene tried skiing for the first time this week and decided she's not a fan. She took lessons each day and said the instructor was great but she just wasn't feeling comfortable with progressing so quickly and wanted to relax and enjoy the mountains for a couple of days. Since I've turned into a bit of a cripple, unable to do the hiking I planned to do, we decided to take the train and gondola up to Mannlichen, one of the nearby mountains, to enjoy the view and snow without skiis or a snowboard strapped to our feet. We went to the restaurant on top of the mountain for cups of hot chocolate before returning to Lauterbrunnen. The sun was shining brightly and Rene was able to relax and appreciate the incredible beauty surrounding us.

In Wengen, one of the stops along the route between Lauterbrunnen and Mannlichen.

A Quiet Day

This was the day I finally admitted my knee was wrecked.

When I went for the long walk on Sunday my ankles got sore from my hiking boots somehow lightly bruising them. On Monday I felt muscle soreness, but nothing unexpected. My right knee was a little sore but I figured it was just my old knee-sprain injury flaring up. Usually this doesn't affect me much - sometimes me knee will make a clicking sound or ache a bit, but it never slows me down. While I was in Lucerne the pain started getting worse and by the time I returned to the train station, every step caused pain, although the pain intensified while going downhill or down a flight of stairs (it hurt to put weight on it while bent). This morning it hurt with every step so I decided to take it easy and just spend the day at the chalet. I'm so thankful that I didn't buy a multiple day pass to explore the mountains!

I helped the kitchen staff clean up from breakfast, worked with them on prepping for dinner, played the keyboard, and chatted with a couple of guys for a while. Al both cracked me up and slightly offended me by laughing when I said I was from Canada and throwing out the comment, "A friend of mine says being from Canada is like living in the apartment above a good party." Turns out he worked in Chicago for a while and the quote came from his friend from Michigan. For the rest of the week he simply called me "Canada", as in, "Hey Canada, how was your day?"

In the afternoon I went for a walk with the head cook and assistant cook. We walked along the creek running behind the chalet, up a hill and along a back road. So beautiful and the snow was falling in big, fluffy flakes.

L-R Julie and Heather, our fabulous cooking team.

Evenings at the chalet involved occasional group activities like a quiz night (I'm still impressed that Jenny helped our team get the correct answer to, "What sport has the most fatalities in England?" by giving the answer, "Fishing") or a chocolate fondue involving huge bowls of white, milk, and dark chocolate with trays of fresh fruit and piles of forks. Evenings also usually included smaller groups playing Halli Galli (I was horrible at it) or Uno with rules I'd never heard of before that make the game way more fun. We were all too tired to stay up much past 10:00 p.m. so we didn't have much time to fill anyway.

Train to Lucerne

I wanted to get out of the mountains and see a nearby city and I read somewhere that Lucerne/Luzern has a nice old town section. There's a two-and-a-half hour scenic train trip from Lauterbrunnen to Lucerne so I decided to use it as a day trip and spend a few hours wandering around Lucerne.

When I got on the train I discovered that there were several different types of train car. One seemed to be obviously first class so I looked into the next car and discovered it was full of soldiers so I moved to the car in the opposite direction. This car had huge windows providing unhindered views of the scenery but the train was called "Golden Pass Panoramic" so I thought maybe all the cars looked like that. A woman soon came through the train to check tickets and told me I had a second-class ticket but was sitting in a first class section. I asked her where I should go to reach a second-class car and she said, "Two cars back." I gave her a wincing smile and said, "But it's full of soldiers." She said they would be getting off in two stops (I saw a lot of soldiers during my travels so I think there must have been a base nearby). I put on my best "I'm innocent and travelling alone" face and sweetly asked if I could stay in my seat until the second stop. She hesitated and then gave me a sympathetic smile and agreed. I got to enjoy fifteen extra minutes of comfort and sweeping views.

A view from the train.

A view from the train.

A view from the train.

When I arrived in Lucerne I went to the tourism office at the train station to get advice on what to see and where to go. I was given a map of the town with a two-hour walking tour marked on it. The walk took me along the river, across the covered bridges, through the old town, past the Lion Monument, past an old church, and along Lake Lucerne back to the train station.

At one point I sneezed while waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk. A woman standing next to me smiled and said, "Gesundheit!" I laughed and asked if she spoke English but she shook her head. I said, "Canada?" and she nodded with a confused look. I said, "In Canada, 'Gesundheit!'" to try and indicate that we say the same thing in Canada. She laughed and nodded so I think she got it. It was so crazy to hear someone say "Gesundheit!" for real. I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for a while.

Chapel Bridge in Lucerne.

A bridge across the Reuss River.

Spreuerbrücke or Mill Bridge, built in 1408, it's the oldest covered bridge in Europe.

Paintings along the ceiling in the covered bridges.

I can't resist a good door knocker.

Lucerne is known for many beautiful frescos painted on the walls in the old town.

Fresco in the old town.

Bertel Thorvaldsen's famous carving of a dying lion (the Lion Monument, or Löwendenkmal). The carving commemorates the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

The view towards the waterfront from the bottom of the steps at Hof Church.

I can't resist quirky door knobs... some day I'll figure out what I find so appealing about them.

Lucerne's old town.

The train journey through the mountains back to Lauterbrunnen.