Simple Happiness

When I saw that the sky was blue and the clouds were white, I asked my mother and niece if they wanted to go up to Mt. Rigi. They said yes right away because the weather was quite nice. Little did we know that the weather could change so abruptly once up in Mt. Rigi.

We took the cogwheel railway in Vitznau. As the cogwheel went up to Mt. Rigi, we still saw that the sky was blue. It was even sunny when we arrived in Rigi Kulm. We just went inside the toilet for a while, and when we went out just after 5 to 10 minutes, it was no longer sunny. The sun suddenly hid from the clouds. It became very cold and quite windy too. It was probably below freezing point with the wind.

Mt. Rigi, which is 1,800 meters above sea level, is called the Queen of the Mountains in Switzerland.

We went to watch the Farmers’ Festival in Weggis. We attended the mass first, then went to watch the “Folklore Show”, and finally, watch the parade. Farmers’ Festival is also popularly known as “Sennenchilbi”.

The Farmers’ Association of Weggis was founded 320 years ago and is the oldest association in the village. It has managed to preserve its customs and traditions over the past 300 years.

The last “Sennenchilbi” in Weggis was 5 years ago, and the next “Sennenchilbi” will be in 5 years from now, in 2011.

We went to Lucerne again. We took the bus going to Kuessnacht am Rigi. Then we took the train going to Lucerne. We spent the whole afternoon roaming around Lucerne. Despite that, we were still not able to really explore the whole city of Lucerne. My mother got tired and we called it a day.

We went to Einsiedeln to see the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln which is also known as the Einsiedeln Abbey or “Kloster Einsiedeln”. Since it was on a Sunday, we were fortunate enough that there was no mass when we arrived there at past 1:00 p.m.

Einsiedeln is a small municipality in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. Einsiedeln is best known for its famous monastery, the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln. It is probably the most frequented pilgrimage destination in Switzerland because of the Einsiedeln Abbey.

The Abbey Church was open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m but it was not allowed to take pictures inside the church.