I went with some people up into the mountains today. The first 400m of altitude we covered with a little wagon pulled by an engine at the top of the hill. We had to wait for about 1½h before being able to board. The view was stunning. We covered another 600m of altitude until we reached one of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) huts, had some soup, chocolate cake, water, and hiked down again. We waited for another ½h until they told us we would have to wait another hour... Then we just hiked all the way down. At the end, it started to rain and the thunder started rolling. On the road back to Lucerne we were caught in a long traffic jam. It took us hours to get back.
Truly, the mountains want to be left alone.
Also interesting to note that for Swiss people, spending a few hours travelling is really a horrible thing, while Americans don’t seem to mind that much. Their country is bigger, and there is more distance to cover between cities and places to see. Here in Switzerland, no matter in which direction you drive, in four hours you have left the country.