Today has been the most glorious, gorgeous summery day. Such a wonderful day to be alive! So we had brekky as normal, but after studying the public transport maps for ourselves, decided on the combination of a bus that stopped just up from the hostel, and the tram that connected with it at a later stop. This tram took us all the way to the bus depot, no worries for an old woman with osteoarthritis of the knee!

So we arrived at the bus depot and were spotted by our kindly bus driver from yesterday afternoon. He was pleased to see us but disappointed when we told him we were travelling with their competition today (all booked through Viator on the net). We'll travel with his company again tomorrow, I think.

So we were put into a little bus with a bunch of other people (Spanish, and Taiwanese from Texas, and 3 lovely Muslim sisters also from Texas!). The bus took us over the Albis Pass to Weggis where we caught a cable car a long way up Mt Rigi (to 1,200 metres), and then we transferred to a cog-wheel train (the first in Europe) to take us to the summit. We were sort of "set free" at Weggis, given the tickets for everything we needed and told to meet the coach in Lucerne at 6pm. So we explored the summit of Mt Rigi, had some lunch (chicken schnitzel), and then returned on the cog-wheel train all the way down to Lake Lucerne to the village of Vitznau.

At Vitznau we boarded the paddle steamer for the one hour boat ride to Lucerne, except that we found that it's second last stop was at the Swiss Museum of Transport, somewhere Tom had been hoping to go (has real trains, planes and automobiles - 'tis huge). So we hopped off and Tom explored while I had a coffee, did my sudoku and used my iPad.

The mountains here usually have masculine names, but Rigi is a feminine name, and so she is known as "Queen of the Mountains". Mt Rigi is not in the Alps, she's not even in the Pre-Alps, she's in the midlands.

Switzerland has 4 official languages: French, German, Italian and Romansh (an ancient type of Latin based language). The children have to learn French at school because that used to be the international diplomacy language, but now they choose to learn English as soon as they are allowed, as well.

I forgot to mention yesterday about the storks. We went through this village where about 6 buildings all in a row on one side of the road (houses and a church) have nests on chimneys and rooves, with storks in them. Yesterday's guide said it was the headquarters of the baby delivery service. I shall include a photo.