Crowd-pleasing cog wheels — Writer & traveller

Buyer’s remorse descended within hours of booking the Park Hotel Vitznau in Switzerland for a birthday treat (not mine).

The reviews are amazing. Anna Wolf Tasker (from The Lakehouse, Daylesford) rates it as her favourite. Problem is, it’s just so eye-wateringly expensive. Which is what everyone says about this country.

At the Park Hotel we’re talking a nightly room rate equivalent to a month’s mortgage repayment on a Sydney apartment. And that’s entry level, no lake view.

Vitznau is a sleepy town on Lake Lucerne. There’s a handful of hotels, a bar and a ferry wharf. Not a whole lot more, other than the Vitznau – Rigi Kulm cogwheel railway, which keeps the day-trippers coming.

Opened in 1871, the Vitznau cog railway is billed as the first of its kind in Europe.

It looks chocolate box cute, and the kids, big and small, absolutely love it. It’s also a very handy way to get to the top of Mount Rigi. Unless you want to climb a couple of thousand metres yourself.

So we jumped on board and arrived at the summit 40-minutes later. Great views along the way, looking out over Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, and across to the Jura Mountains.

Not only could we breathe lungfulls of fresh mountain air, we could hear cow bells and smell farm smells and see snow-capped mountains in the distance.

As for that buyer’s regret: good sense prevailed and before we left home we exercised the no-charge cancellation option and said farewell to the Park Hotel and hello to the Hotel Vitznauerhof.

Very glad we did. It was a gem of a hotel, right on Lake Lucerne. Which means swims in the afternoon, dinner on the terrace fronting the water, and mornings watching the light change as the ferries do their thing.

Swiss bliss.