Zurich; Wednesday, 21 December, 2005

The sight that should dominate the skyline around the city (when it is not covered by clouds) is the summit of the Uetilberg. At nearly 900m, it towers over the surrounding landscape. This being Switzerland they built a railway to almost the summit. After a very spectacular journey winding up the side of the mountain I completed the last 10 minutes on foot and came out at the Hotel Uto Kulm which marks the summit of the mountain. To make it that bit taller an observation tower has been built which takes you through the magical 900m mark. However, the tower made no difference as the levels of murk from the snow clouds were the same at 860 and 900m!

Running from just before the hotel and out along the ridge to the Cable car at Felsenegg is a "Planetweg". At the start is a model of the sun at 1:1billion scale. Then, on the same scale, the planets are set out along the walk. Mercury, Venus and Earth before you reach the hotel Mars just behind the hotel and Jupiter a little further on. Trying to get your head round the distances involved is not helped when Pluto is just beyond the cable car station - over 5KM away!

The walk along the ridge is pleasant giving views (once you come down a little from the top of the mountain and come below the murk level) over the lake and back to Zurich. The signs all describe it as an easy and flat walk; this is a new definition of flat, which actually means, "rolling". The walk took about 90 minutes and at the end, you are rewarded with a stunning descent in the cable car down into the town of Aldiswil.

From here, I caught the train further south, along the line of one of the many mountain rivers to the town of Sihlbrugg and from there on to the town of Zug, in the next canton.

Zug lies on the banks of the Zueger See (Lake Zug) and has stunning views across it to the mountains on the other side. The old town is quite pretty, but apart from that, there is not much else, so after a while I wandered back to the station and caught the train back to Zurich. It is only at this point I realised how far I had travelled. From Zug the train took nearly 30 minutes, stopping only once, to make the journey back to the city centre.

As I arrived back into the city, I noticed that the clouds had started to lift, and so took a chance and caught the train back up to Uetilberg. By the time I got there the clouds had all lifted, but it also being the 21st of December, the light was rapidly starting to fade, so whilst I got some stunning views, I only managed to take some dingy photos! I wandered back down to the train station and stopped in the restaurant there to have some dinner before catching the train back down into the city.

After having a look around the large Christmas market on the station concourse, I caught the tram back to the hotel to rest my, by now, thoroughly weary legs!

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