Lucerne, Switzerland (Mt. Pilatus)

Today started out much better than yesterday, which was good because we had a fun day of sledding Mt. Pilatus on the books!

After we ate breakfast in our hotel room (we brought lots of snacks this trip, food costs here are RIDICULOUS) we bundled up in our snow gear and walked back downtown to the Tourist Office (beside the train station).  We knew we wanted to take Bus 1 to Linde Pilatus but weren't sure about which bus ticket to buy.  The lady at the information counter was super helpful and we were able to buy a full day bus pass (11 EUR for two adults).  We could have purchased tickets for Pilatus there also, but we still weren't sure if we wanted to just sled or go all the way to the top of the mountain.

Once we got to the Linde Pilatus stop it was a short 10 minute (uphill) walk to the Kriens terminal.  We ended up buying a Snow & Fun Day Pass (57 EUR for two adults) which took us half-way up the mountain to the Frakmuntegg stop where you can rent all kinds of sports gear.  We rented two family sleds (33 EUR total) and had free access to the cable cars for the day.  It would have cost us another 50 EUR had we went to the top and we figured we would have more fun sledding anyway - which we did - so we were happy with our choice.

It took us about an hour to sled to down (from Frakmuntegg to Krienseregg) on the easy slope (about 2 miles) and hike back up to the cable cars.  We did this route twice, ate lunch at the restaurant at the Krienseregg stop, then sled down one final time.

Kids schnitzel 10.50 CHF on right, adult schnitzel 25 CHF on left.
The only difference was a handful more of pommes!

The girlie liked her spaghetti, though!

 By then it was getting colder and the snow was turning into ice so it was a lot faster.  There was a pretty bad accident on the difficult slope as we were riding the cable car back up.  They had to pull a sledder out on a snowmobile/stretcher and take him/her to an ambulance.  After seeing that we were pretty much done for the day.  We also had to carry the sleds uphill at the end of the route each time to get back to the cable car, (there wasn't enough snow to pull them up all the way)...

We took the bus back to the hotel and regrouped before bundling back up to go downtown and find dinner (which is very difficult to do on New Year's Eve, with kids, and without a reservation!).  But, the downtown area is really pretty at night so it was a nice, albeit disappointing, walk.

We ended up at Pizza Blitz near the train station which made the kids happy (my husband and I are so sick of McDonald's and pizza, those are our go-to meals when we travel because we know the kids will always eat it...bleh).  We also took the bus since we had the pass for the day.  We really liked that they had a digital display screen at each stop with arrival times, it made things a lot easier!

 Once we got back to the hotel we all passed out fairly quickly from our day of fun!  We were thankful of the late check-out time (noon), so we slept in as much as we could before getting up and heading home.  

1 CHF = .81 EUR = 1.12 USD

Had it not been winter and New Year's Day, we would have hit up the Museum of Transportation on our way out of Lucerne or the La Montagne des Singes (Monkey Park) in France on our way back.

Oh well, sounds like the making of another trip this summer!

What is your go-to meal plan for your family when traveling?