The views are stunning.

I should work for the newspaper. I can pun with the best of them! Anyway, this is part 2 of my Swiss Cable Car adventures. And now, before I begin, allow me to change the subject. I have decided, because I like to write lots and lots of words, that I will be adding, in the next months or several years, longer form versions of my travels. Sort of like travel guides, only without any useful information. I picture them being in pdf form, and being enlightening about the cultures of the places I visit, and possibly being very expensive.

Now, back to the point of this post. When the Adventure Travel World Summit came to its alcohol soaked conclusion, around 4:30 in the morning, with me wandering home in a fog, I had two more days in the city of Lucerne, to recover and explore the city on my own. As both of my readers know, in my last adventure I took cable cars that were rickety and not at all inspiring of confidence. This time I went the other way and chose to go state-of-the-art. Namely, I would be riding the brand new Cabrio cable car – the world’s first open air cable car. It opened only three months ago, and it still has that new cable car smell.

As you can see, this cable car is topless.

It’s all uphill from here.

A kindly German speaking man tells me all sorts of things I will never know.

If you’re afraid of heights, though, this probably isn’t the high altitude open air cable car for you. The views are fantastic, but its not for the meek. Silent and sleek, the cable car takes you up to the top of Stanserhorn – which, as most people know, is where Telly Savalas lived in 1969. Or he did in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. (totally underrated by the way.) The old cable car has been replaced.

The Swiss, when they see a formidable peak high above the clouds somewhere, almost invariably find some way to open a gift shop on it. Many of the largest peaks have either cog wheel trains, or regular trains, or cable cars that cart you up to a waiting restaurant/viewing platform/swiss watch store. (In my time in Switzerland, I believe I visited three of the highest altitude Swiss watch outlets the country has to offer.)

The views are stunning. I mean, look at that. It’s ridiculous!

It only takes about six minutes to get to the top. Once there, depending on the weather, you can seemingly see all of Switzerland in every direction.

A group enjoying one of the viewing platforms.

I went on a Saturday, and many of the people going up in the car with me were Swiss. It’s still new enough to attract the locals. I had a very light breakfast at the top – all they had were croissants and coffee – and took some pictures, and then it was time to climb down.

Signs for hiking trails in Switzerland are clearly marked. But, just to be safe, I walked into the gift shop and asked about hiking down the mountain. After some discussion, after I let her know I was an American and was in “American shape,” it was decided that I would take the cable car to the half-way point, Blumatt, and hike down from there.

I told the cable car driver my intention, and he obligingly stopped the car for me. It’s not really on the average itinerary, and exiting the cable car is a bit of an adventure. The operator has to slow the car down, and, using something not all that different from a gaff on a fishing boat, has to hook one of the bars on the platform and pull the car over. Then he pulls down a ramp. After this, he directed me to walk across.

This guy is smiling, but I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy.

Hmmm. Now what?

Ah! I walk down some stairs and a long ramp and then I just hike for three hours!

The car sped up and pulled away and I was left alone on a giant metal trellis-like structure. It didn’t look like the kind of place a tourist would be allowed to be. It took me a moment to find my way down, and then I was in Blumatt, which consists entirely of a tangerine colored farm house.

I soon found the trail to Stans. It claimed it would take an hour and a half. I knew this really meant three hours, and I was okay with that. The going was steep and slippery, but the views were amazing, and the sounds of cowbells melodically ringing all around me, as cows grazed, made the setting so perfect it almost annoyed me. (The Swiss can do that. They do things so well, so precisely perfect, that sometimes you want to twist a tree branch out of place or kick over a rock.)

The walk down, I could tell by looking at the people walking up, was relatively easy, and I enjoyed it at a leisurely pace. I walked into Stans, having passed through the pristine farms and meticulous neighborhoods of the town, and it was all deeply satisfying. I walked the cobblestone streets to the train station, and, then, right on time, my train arrived, and I was whisked back to Lucerne. It was the perfect day trip.

For more information on Cabrio, go here.

For more information on Switzerland, go here.

For more information on Lucerne, go here.

CORRECTION! As occasionally happens here at the Gallivanting Explorer, it appears I have been misled. In my original post I stated that Stanserhorn is where they filmed On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And, while I still declare it to be totally underrated, it appears the movie was actually filmed in Schilthorn, in the Bernese Alps. I feel a little duped. It could be there was a language snafu, and the person I was speaking to merely nodded in agreement to everything I said. Either way, I knew I had to set the record straight at once! So there you have it.

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