After a day of resting tired legs and doing some writing, it was time to move on. Driving Bertha past the Brienzer
See we had final views of the Jungfrau peaks in her mirrors.
A series of
tunnels took us out and up to the Brunig Pass at 1008 metres which Bertha coped
with brilliantly. We stopped for coffee overlooking Lungernsee before driver,
van and passenger made the slow and steep, hairpin descent.
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| View from Brunig Pass at 1008m |
It wasn’t until manoeuvring Bertha onto chocs at our
chosen campsite that we realised there was a problem with the power steering.
With schoolgirl German and incredible ‘trip luck’ we found a terrific mechanic,
Piermin, just 200m down the road.
He diagnosed ‘schaum’ essentially bubbles in
the automatic transmission oil which were most likely the result of the steep
climb and descent down the pass. Apparently a common enough problem and easily,
and very cheaply fixed, by some new oil being added. Thank you Piermin!
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| Bertha resting lakeside after her troubles |
With a bright hot morning the next day we had to decide
whether to use the good weather to see Mount Pilatus, or the lakeside city of
Lucerne. We chose the latter and caught the ‘panorama train’ from the local
station for the half hour journey.
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| Our panorama train to Lucerne |
The panorama train travels along the same
line as the commuter and intercity trains but makes all the stops and is
designed for taking in the views.
From
its large picture and overhead windows we saw the mountain station for Mount
Pilatus and a single carriage rack and pin train climb Switzerland’s steepest
cog railway.
Bowling past Lake Lucerne we saw the mountain ridge of
Rigi Kulm before disappearing into a long tunnel to be unloaded in Lucerne’s
huge central station of many platforms. Armed with our walking tour information
we began a lovely day of strolling around the pretty lakeside city. The fabulous
old town is across the River Reuss, another fast-moving blue-green and foamy
delight of dashing water, that we crossed using a medieval wooden covered
bridge.
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| First views of Lucerne across the river |
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| A unique remaining Guild House |
Many of the historical houses in the old centre are
covered with bright or fading paintings. Most have heraldic motifs or imagery
associated with their owners, or the purpose of the building. Hence the
Weinmarktapotheke had interesting wine and medicinal motifs dating back to
1530. Beautifully decorated houses line the sides of Stag Square where Goethe
stayed at the Hotel Goldener Adler in 1779.
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| One of the ornate motifs |
Winding back down to the river we crossed this time using
the Spreuerbrucke, built in 1408 and part of the town’s fortifications. Hanging
under the wooden eaves are a series of dark paintings illustrating the ‘dance
of Death’ – carried out in the 1600s and suitably ghoulish showing skeletal
death lurking in the corners of various incidents of daily life.
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| Kapellbrucke |
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| Spreuerbrucke |
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| One of the "large white birds" on the river |
Americans were puzzled not by the pictures but by the
many swans coasting along the river. “Say, can those large white birds fly?” asked
one of them to no-one in particular and not interested in any answer.
Large
numbers of Asian tourists hurried about taking photos, mainly of themselves or each
other, and swatting at the swarms of river flies that collected in clouds by
the water.
Back up in town we went to see the very moving
Lion’s Monument carved into the sandstone cliff face in 1821.
It is of a dying lion, pierced in his left flank and lying protectively on a
fleur-de-lys.
It commemorates one of many ugly events that occurred in the
French Revolution. More than 850 Swiss Guards were massacred in cold blood by
mercenary mobs in Paris whilst they were stationed there to protect the Royal
Family. It was the idea of a Swiss officer who somehow survived the assault.
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| Löwendenkmal - the lion of Lucerne |
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| Sandstone rock above a pond |
We had our picnic contemplating the sculpture and
watching tour groups make their visit, before climbing up the steep path to the
remains of the city’s fortified walls. A narrow walkway takes you along
400meters of solid and turreted walls and into three renovated watch towers.
One of them is the oldest clock tower in Lucerne dating from 1533 and still
housing a working mechanism.
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| Views across the city from the old town walls |
A little giddy from the heights and the heat it was
refreshing to take a bus out along the lakeside to see the waters and the
belle-epoch hotels that grew up in the 19th century as English fuelled tourism
boomed around the lake.
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| Walking the walls |
Strolling back along its clear shores we saw
paddle-steamers on the waters and admired tall and expensive terraced houses
and hotels. From the water you can clearly see Lucerne’s position within the
mountain range.
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| Mount Pilatus across Lake Lucerne |
Eschewing a visit to the art museum in favour of a return
back in sunshine we collected our bikes from the station around 5pm. On the
cycle back to the camp it seemed that everyone was out cutting or raking grass
for drying into bales. For some it was a real family affair with wives,
children and cats all busy in the freshly cut fields and paddocks.
We stopped to buy homemade alp cheese from a dairy farmer and later enjoyed its strong flavour, reflecting on a charming day in middle Switzerland.
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| The orchard next to the campsite |
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| A lakeside house at Sachseln |
