I had been looking forward to today since I saw a Rick Steves show about traveling by train around Switzerland. In that show he visited the highest suspension bridge in Europe which was at Mt. Titlis near Engelberg in the Uri Alps. So I wanted to go there.

As a side note, I lost my toenail again yesterday. It had just grown out after 10 months (hiking incident) but got injured again in June (biking incident) and finally came off now. Buy more bandaids. After a restless night, we finally got going around 8 am, gingerly put on our hiking boots, headed to a nearby patisserie to grab something for breakfast, and walked the few blocks to the train station. There, we had the ticket-buying experience which is about as efficient as possible since we’re in Switzerland, but a lot of other people needed tickets and other things too. While waiting, we talked to a young Swiss girl who had recently married but had to come to the train ticket office to change her name on her driver’s license. Anyway, after waiting 20 minutes, our number was called and we purchased our tickets to Engelberg. We made the train by five minutes.

The Swiss trains compared to Amtrack are light years ahead based on smoothness, timeliness, and cleanliness. One time our train was eight minutes late and the station master came out and apologized to those of us who were waiting.

While traveling, we started hearing bells and realized there was a herd of Brown Swiss cattle spread out below us. Those are some giant bells on those cows to make that much noise. And there are tunnels, lots of tunnels. 

After an hour, we arrived in Engelberg and followed the well-posted signs through town to the Mt. Titlis gondola ride.  It was about a 1/2 mile walk from the train station. The trip up took about 40 minutes and first included a gondola that could hold eight people. We were the only two in ours.

A view of the Uri Alps from part way up.

After reaching Stand Station, we switched to the Rotair, a round revolving cable car that could hold 80 people. I suppose they need that during summer when tourism is at its height.

We continued to head up until we were over the Titlis Glacier which has been retreating rapidly for a variety of reasons all related to global warming. And the smaller it gets, the faster it melts because of an increase in rock surface that retains heat. A member of the ski patrol who has worked here more than 20 years said the most dramatic changes occurred in the last eight years. The glacier is expected to disappear in 20 years.

Just before we arrived at the top, we looked out the window to see clouds coming down. Oh, oh. There goes our view.

The first thing we noticed on reaching the top station are tourists and lots of them. Even at this time of year. Later we see the busses in the parking lot below.  Second, we are fogged in. A video I watched said to wait a few minutes and the clouds would likely lift. We did and they didn’t. 

Here’s a photo of what we might have seen. Technically, we are on a lower section which is the peak with the station on top. 

We were feeling the altitude and realized we were at 10k feet.

Part of the tourism may be due to the advertisement that you can walk on a glacier here and we had to walk across to get to the suspension bridge. We also crossed the suspension bridge – the Cliff Walk- supposedly the highest in Europe. It might have had a wonderful view but not today. 

The bridge was only unsteady if several people were walking on it at the same time.

Then we visited the ice cave, below the glacier. 

This sign told us the glacier was 65 feet thick above us and that it moved about 20 inches a year.

It was cold inside the cave and the ice was shiny and slick.

We had missed walking through the glacier at Chamonix a few years ago so this was a plus. We grabbed a bowl of soup in the restaurant and waited some more for the clouds to move out and we did get a glimpse of blue sky occasionally. With more time we could have exited the lift lower down at Thubsee where there was an abundance of hiking trails and a large tarn. 

But we left, first taking the Rotair and then the gondola back down.  We had some spectacular views of the mountains as soon as we escaped the cloud cover. Overall, however, the trip was disappointing mainly because of the obvious evidence of how much the glacier had receded.

Back in Lucerne we first buy our train ticket for tomorrow then go check out a few book stores for more info on the Chapel Bridge. The only one – and well-detailed it appeared to be at two volumes – was in German. We did pick up a couple of Harry Potter books for two grandkids who are studying German in high school.

Lucerne is a beautiful city and we were glad to have the opportunity to return. Tomorrow we head for the Bernese Alps.