As I was travelling by train from Austria, first on the agenda were Lucerne and Lauterbrunnen. No, the two are not really all that close, but I was to be in Lauterbrunnen that night and wanted to break up my twelve hour train ride one more time (after breakfast in Liechtenstein). Thus after again nodding a brief greeting to Switzerland in the Zurich train station, I finally stopped in Lucerne, full of smiles and putting my best foot forward (I wanted Switzerland to take an immediate liking to me, of course).
Lucerne, now there's a charming not-so-little town ('charming', by the way, might as well have been the theme of this two week excursion; I think I experienced more 'charming' than I could shake a stick at). I disembarked from the train, stepped out the door of the tourist office (conveniently located in the station) with map in hand, and was at once greeted by a cool draft coming off the cornflower blue Lake Lucerne which stretched out to my right. "Yes," I decided, "Switzerland and I will get along famously." And so we did. I had the pleasure of discovering Lucerne for about two and a half hours before I had to continue on to Lauterbrunnen, but I think I got a rather nice overview. The Lucerne tourist office was thoughtful enough to include a guided walk in their map which I more or less followed, winding up the Reuss River for a ways before crossing to the far side and meandering further still until I looped back towards the train station.Probably one of the city's most iconic offerings is the Kapellbrücke, a bridge spanning the Reuss diagonally, which is attached to the even older Wasserturm.
The Wasserturm (literally 'water tower', although it is so called because it stands in water) was built around 1300 and initially used as a prison and torture chamber. And to think how innocent it looks! The bridge, built thirty years later, is the world's oldest surviving truss bridge as well as Europe's oldest wooden covered bridge.
But that's not all! This bridge, along with two others (one of which is long destroyed) in the city, has 17th century paintings in the rafters depicting Lucern's history (as seen from a Catholic Counter-Reformation perspective).
There were originally 158 paintings between the three bridges with 147 still remaining up until 1993, but alas there was a great fire which almost burned down the Kapellbrücke and the remains of only 47 of these paintings were scavenged, and only 30 of those have since been fully restored.
In the Old Town, on the northern bank of the Reuss, there are still many half-timbered buildings with colorfully painted facades and decorative iron sign holders gracing the entrances to shops, hotels, and restaurants. I really didn't have time to stop in to many of the shops, but just walking through the narrow cobbled streets was a pleasure in itself.
Although the train I was supposed to catch was drawing closer, I figured I had enough time to swing by Lucerne's other well-known landmark, the Löwendenkmal or Lion Monument. This ten meter long and six meter high sculpture was hewn from 1820-1 to commemorate the massacre of the Swiss Guards at Tuileries Palace in 1792 during the French Revolution. Always spot on with his words, Mark Twain said that this mortally wounded lion is "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."
I came, I saw, I took a moment to reflect and another to snap a photograph, then scampered off to the train station.
Once onboard the rather old-fashioned train from Lucerne to Interlaken, I settled in to enjoy some of the most scenic parts of Switzerland I had yet been whisked through. (I assume) because this wasn't one of the main railways, it cut a more rugged path through the alps, giving way to some pretty extraordinary views! There were so many little turquoise lakes at the bases of mountains with jagged rocky ridge lines, and of course the vegetation was all a fantastic fresh and fertilized (I could smell the cows in the surrounding pastures) green - perhaps even rivaling the Emerald Isle. Lake Brienz was probably the prettiest lake that I passed, but that's a stiff competition.
Lake Brienz
I would have been content watching the landscape in this part of the country slip by for hours, especially as it was starting to rain, but all too soon I disembarked in Interlaken and caught another train to Lauterbrunnen where my new friend, Ceejay, was waiting for me.
Luckily the rain was letting up again as I pulled into the station, and we walked through the crisp early evening back to her apartment. Since it was still light out after dropping off my bags, she suggested we go on a little walk around the valley.
This, by the way, was the view from Ceejay's apartment, along with the tunnel behind the waterfall:
We went up behind the waterfall through a roughly hewn tunnel of sorts, where I also learned that a man near and dear to my heart, J. R. R. Tolkien, had visited Lauterbrunnen when he was 19. He was apparently so awed with the landscape that he painted Lauterbrunnen as viewed from Wengen, a village on an eastern cliffside. This innocent painting he called, "Rivendale".
We then strolled back along the river as the skies darkened with the setting sun.
Back at her apartment, Ceejay whipped us up some delicious ravioli and we sat on her back porch for a summer dinner. We were even pleasantly surprised with a display of fireworks (perhaps for the Fourth of July even though we were in Switzerland?). After a coffee and dessert and chatting for a bit, we both retired for the night, prepared to wake up bright and early for a full day of exploring the Alps.
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