Where to Switzerland - Day Nine

Our full day in the Appenzell region.

People on Reddit, when I had shared my itinerary for the full trip for advice, said we could’t do it, but we managed to see the Aescher AND hike Saxer Lucke in the same day.

We started with the closer of the two, taking the steep gondola up with only a short hike from the gondola station to the famous Aescher restaurant. This hike can be much longer , but for the sake of doing both of the hikes in one day, we only hiked to and from the restaurant. Next time, we vow to eat there.

After taking the gondola back down, we spontaneously grabbed ice cream at a nearby stall and then we hopped in the car for the 40 minute drive to the station in Sennwald, to go up to the start of the Saxer Lucke trail.

At the top of the gondola ride was the Staubern guesthouse, complete with a restaurant. We decided to grab lunch (and more coffee) before beginning our hike.

This hike was much longer than the previous one - and slightly more precarious. We had long since chosen to hike the 6km route (2.5 hours there and back) instead of the much longer 17km full loop (that I am assuming the people on reddit thought I was planning to do, although I had specified).

Not going to lie, when we got back down from our hike and my post-hike beer, we were not looking forward to the cuisine served for dinner at the guesthouse we were staying at. Instead, we looked up the nearest McDonalds!