Easter in Zug, Switzerland

The timing could not have been better! A business meeting in Zug the day after the long Easter Week-end! So, with very little persuasion, we piled the whole family into the car and headed for the road on Saturday morning with a mere 600kms between our Zelený Dům and Zug.

What we didn't expect though, was the saturday ski traffic jams as all the resorts change over on Saturdays, so the highways and biways are jam-packed with ski rack donned vehicles. The 600 ks took us over 9 hours and we were really glad by the time we eventually got there.

Since we only arrived after 6, we persuaded the littlies to don their jackets and head out into the snowy weather to find a bite to eat. We settled on a little pizza diner - the only joint that seemingly had no smoking patrons (but that was short lived...).

George (my boss) and his family were booked into the same hotel as us. Upon meeting them in the breakfast room, they gave away all their secrets for sightseeing gems and so we set off with some options for the day. First off though, we wanted to have a look at Zug (our hotel was in Baar - a mere 5 kms from Zug). This was a very short-lived excursion however as everything was shut tighter than a badger's bottom and the town was not much larger than a postage stamp.

We soon left Zug (which flanks a large body of water aptly called Zugerzee) and carried on alongside the lake until this lookout point.
A herd of goats came ambling along as we got out of the car, and that hugely amused the girls.
There were even some Lamas in their midst - I must admit I have never seen a Lama before, but if "Emperor's New Groove" is anything to go by, they must have been Lamas.

While we were watching the goats and waiting for the photographer to get organised with his tripod and camera to take a decent family shot, the snow came belting down. It was the driest snow ever and blew off as it landed. It wasn't so funny though when it went down your collar and swiftly melted - it then became very wet indeed...
Not far from Zug in a town called Vitznau, George had informed us about a cog train that goes to the top of the Rigi mountain. We got there just as the train departed, so we had some time to look around. We came across a stunning waterfall on the hill above the town and had a great walk.
The view from the train was stunning! That is until we got to about half way up the mountain where the snow belt was.... The clouds were completely covering the berg and the visibility was 0. The only thing visible was the snow falling in front of your face.
The trip was reasonably long taking about 30 minutes to get to the top. We got off the train and ran into the little cafe /souvenir shop at the station to get out of the blizzard. Colin & Amber braved the snow to try to find some place to eat as the cafe could seat about 5 and was predictably full. I took the time to buy Saz a magnet and since the train was still stopped at the station when Colin & Amber came back with nothing to report, I made the sensible suggestion to get straight back into the train and go down a few stops to the previous village where we had spotted some restaurants.

We had a stunning stop in a cozy restaurant near the station in the village half way up the hill and then waited for the train to come past again before making the final descent. At the bottom, the weather was far more pleasant - especially since we could see further than the ground in front of our feet... So we ambled along the lake shore before heading off.

After leaving Vitznau, we continued around the lake to Luzern, had a brief walk and then packed up for the day.

Now, with Easter Monday approaching more rapidly than the speed of sound and the complete shut down of the entire town, we were getting rather frantic at our lack of Easter eggs and kicking ourselves all the harder for leaving the edible stash at the top of our cupboard back home. Eventually, out of desperation on the drive home, I made a dash into a quick-shop at a garage and secretly came out with some large bunnies and eggs for the expectant kiddies (all 4 of them). There was already much concern that the Easter Bunny would not find them here, so a no-show of chocolate would be a major let down!

Easter Monday arrived and as expected, the parents were woken up with shrieks and all variety of noises at the discovery of chocolate deposits.

Easter Monday was also the day that hosted the Easter Market in Zug. So, we set off in the morning to find out what the fuss was about and to the girls' delight, there was a whole fair!
The markets didn't hold nearly as much attention as the rides, but there was a promise of any choice of purchase up to 5 Franks, so the hunt was on. Horsies and gold jewelry purchased!
Did I mention that it was cold? Freeking cold! After lunch, the whole family crashed and had an afternoon ziz. For supper we found an enchanting old farm house, high on the hill overlooking Zug where the girls coloured pictures while we looked out onto the snowy vista and green hills of Zug.

The girls all dolled up!
On Tuesday, I had to attend my meeting at the European Hub Offices in Zug (about 1.5kms from our hotel in Baar). The day was very cold with a thick blanket of snow having fallen the night before and more falling throughout the day. Colin took the girls to Lucerne and amused them at the transport museum where they could pretend to be cargo train drivers, loading cargo and pushing their trains around (most of the time, Sarah was the Cargo and Amber the engine...). There was an Imax and extensive exhibits all aimed at kids so very interactive.
Colin arrived back in Zug just in time to pick me up after my meeting at the end of the day and we trucked off to find some supper.

Tuesday was the drive home, fortunately going quicker than the trip down....

And much to our surprise, the Easter Bunny had visited our house as well!

Easter eggs by the dozen were collected and stashed and are still being eaten nearly a month later.