October 9, 2018 – Lucerne

October 9, 2018 – Lucerne
Another hotel, another buffet breakfast. I’m becoming an expert at using the coffee machines to make a cappuccino or a latte macchiato.
There are 47 people on this 4 day pretrip. Many are 1st time Grand Circle travelers. One group of 14 are physicians and their spouses who have traveled together since meeting in 1978 at a conference for Thai physicians living in the U.S.
We split into 2 groups and had a 1 1/2 hour guided walk around the town this morning. When this was done, Simone took those of us who still had energy to the lion monument. This is a stone carving of a dying lion to commemorate the Swiss military that protected Louis 14th of France. Over 400 died in the French Revolution.
At 3pm we set out on an optional tour called “The Best of Switzerland”. We walked to the lake and got on a boat. After sailing across the lake for 50 minutes, we arrived in Weggis.. A bus picked us up and we were taken to a gondola station. We took a large gondola up the side of Mt. Rigi to the top (5800 ft). We went to a little chapel built in an opening in the rocks. Then we heard an alpine horn calling us to dinner. We had a wonderful dinner of cheese fondue, chicken, and ice cream. Two musicians kept the room filled with music. One man played accordion while the other played the alpine horn, wooden spoons, a broom, and just about anything he could find in the room. We went down the mountain on a cog train at sunset.
Tomorrow Carol, Tom, and I are going to wander around Lucerne on our own.