Few months ago I was intrigued by a pix of an open air cable car, and found one of the locations, just outside Lucerne.
We had a great time this evening visiting this area.
The train trip is about 20 minutes from Lucerne.
Get off the train, turn left, walk two blocks, turn left, and you're in this cute little town., about a five minutes walk total. Straight ahead is the small funicular entrance. The first part of the journey is in vintage wood trolley- type cars, and then you transfer to the open-air cable car. ( There is an indoor section.) This upward ascent is another ten minutes. So the whole journey from the Lucerne train station is about 45 minutes to the summit.
What an incredible view! There's a cafeteria-type restaurant , an indoor view restaurant , and a large outdoor view area for drinks and purchased food. Free blankets are available --especially nice for evenings. If you take a 15 minute hike, all uphill, you will actually be at the summit, with 360 views. Even tho a little hazy, the views were incredible in all directions!
We left around 6pm to catch the sunset.
It was such an easy jaunt, certainly not an all-day trip, and would be great Alps experience if you didn't have time for the Rigi or Pilates trips.
Because I hadn't heard of this mountain before, I was amazed by what a nice adventure it was, and it's all FREE with the Swiss Travel Pass.
Posted by
Chicago
2669 posts
Hi Pat, I’m starting to do some planning for my June return to Switzerland. I will have 2 full days for mountains when in Lucerne. I will go to Mt. Rigi again because I loved the boat train combo and all the walking opportunities.
I’m trying to decide what to do on the second day. I’m wondering how the Stanserhorn compares to Pilatus (assume there’s perfect weather for both). Does one have more walking opportunities than the other? From the videos I’ve seen of both, it’s hard to tell if either Stanserhorn or Pilatus have many walking trails. Not that I want to walk down the mountains or anything 😊, but I’d like to walk around a bit. So, would you recommend one over the other for walking?
Posted by
OP
San Diego, California
4697 posts
Stanserhorn is much quicker to get to than Pilatus. Once you get on the open air cable car, there are no other stops, as I remember, so if there is a trail down, [most likely there is] you would have to do the entire trip on foot. There were trail signs at the summit, but as we were there in the evening , I didn't pay attention to the hiking options at the top. Carrie, you can hear the cow bells from the open air cable car!
Pilatus was a few years back, and I remember seeing many [probably Swiss] folks hiking up the switchbacks. There are two options for traveling up Pilatus: cogwheel train and gondolas , each of which starts/exits in different places. We took the boat to the cogwheel train to go up, then used the gondolas coming back down, with a view of Lucern. When we exited the gondola, we took the city bus back into the old town. As I remember, the gondola did have a few stops, [which would aid hiking options] but hopefully someone else has a better memory than I do. I know RS cover these options in the guide book.
Have a great time planning this exciting trip!
Posted by
Chicago
2669 posts
Thanks Pat! I’ll do a little more digging and try to find out more about Stanserhorn. I’m pretty sure RS doesn’t cover that one. That might be a better option as it will probably be less crowded than the more popular Pilatus.
My sister was smart and took some videos of the cows with her phone. So, now we can listen to the cow bells whenever we want. 😊
I just found this website and they detail some of the walking on Stanserhorn. And there’s marmots!!!! Maybe I should look for a zoo while I’m in Switzerland. 😊
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
32747 posts
If you want a good zoo there is a good one in Basel.
And an aviary on the centre city lakeside in Zug.