Things to do on Mount Rigi

Mount Rigi rises to 1,798 metres between Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, and gets marketed as the "queen of the mountains" on the strength of a view over thirteen lakes on a clear day. Two historic cog railways reach the summit: one from Vitznau, opened in 1871 as continental Europe's first rack railway, the other from Arth-Goldau.

Both are reachable from Lucerne by boat, with combined boat-and-train tickets sold at the pier. Rigi Kaltbad, roughly two-thirds of the way up, has a small thermal bath complex with mineral pools if you'd rather not do the full ascent.

Walkers head up before dawn for the Rigi Kulm sunrise, then take the train back down; the return descent on foot from Kulm to Vitznau runs about three hours and loses over 1,300 metres of altitude, which is harder on the knees than it sounds.