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With winter slowly making its impression, the day to day life slowly evolves to follow suit. I find people here are much more personable in the winter – not to mention the arrival of rich meals and all things chocolate are very welcome additions. In an attempt to escape the permanent grey weather (which seems to call Paris home from November until March) we headed to the picturesque town of Lucerne in central Switzerland. Founded somewhere around 750 and gaining prominence in the mid-1400s, the town is one of the older cities in Switzerland and this, combined with being perched on the Vierwaldstättersee (the fourth largest lake in Switzerland) with the Alps rising sharply just to the south, make it one of the most visited towns in Switzerland.

Fun-icular

We arrived on the Friday night, and quite late due to the five and a half hour train trip from Paris, but upon exiting the station, the town does not waste any time before turning on the charm. The station itself is quite grand, but the old town, highlighted by the Kapellbrücke looks very impressive when illuminated. However, we did not hang around for long as we had plans for the next day.

After some breakfast the next morning, we headed into town to see the place under more natural lighting conditions. However, the weather was not on our side, being entirely overcast with extremely low cloud, meaning we could not even get a glimpse of the surrounding foothills, let alone the towering Pilatus and Rigi mountains. This was a little disappointing, as we had planned to go up Mount Pilatus, but if we were to see nothing, this would have been somewhat pointless. However, we discovered the website of the mountain which has a live webcam stream, and upon investigating it turned out the clouds were low enough that the summit was well above them. Armed with information, we made our way to the mountain.

In the planning stages of the trip, we had thought about climbing Pilatus, but to do both this and also see the town would be unfeasible. Instead, we took the train to the top. I think it funny that Switzerland is possibly the only place where “I am going to take the train to the top of the mountain” is not an odd thing to say. From the main station, we took a train to Alpnachstad, which is twenty minutes to the south. From there, we transferred to the funicular railway which climbs up to the summit. We purchased our tickets at the main station from Lucerne to the summit, and we were going to figure out what to do from there, which turned out to be a good move.

With a bit of good timing, we got off our train and waited only a few minutes before getting on what is the world’s steepest funicular rail – although I swear everywhere with a funicular rail says this. That being said, I think it is actually true here, with a gradient of over 45% in parts, it does not muck around. Coincidently, the train does not run in winter and we just happened to be there for the last weekend of operation. So seated in the front seat, we figuratively strapped in and headed up. Due to the seriously lousy weather, we did not see much, except for plenty of fresh snow. It quickly became apparent that if one was hiking, one would need snow shoes. The trip lasted about 20 minutes, and was very entertaining due to the many tiny viaducts and tunnels, which whilst very short, typically 5 to 10 metres long, were absolutely massive, often crossing valleys well over 30 or 40 metres deep or going through solid rock. It was only near the summit we actually managed to have a view, but as we were breaching the cloud, we quickly appreciated how good this view was.

Arriving at the station at the top, I could not wait to get outside and have a look around. There had been a massive dump of fresh snow overnight, so people were busy clearing the walkways, but the main deck provided one of the most special views I have seen. The atmospheric inversion was complete, in the sense that we were entirely surrounded by cloud which was more-or-less stationary, with no moment or holes. It was unfortunate that we could not see the lake which encompasses the mountain, but at the same time, to have only the high Alps peeking through the cloud was really something. To the north there was only a sea of cloud and to the south was the towering Jungfrau massif. One could speculate if we could have seen Liechtenstein, but it would indeed be speculation. In any case, it was simply spectacular.

After taking it all, we helped ourselves to a bratwurst and then went to make our way down. We went to the ticket desk in an attempt to buy tickets for the cable car which also services the summits, but we were informed that the voucher we had received when we boarded the funicular railway car was for both up and down, so had obviously been given to us mistakenly, but we were not too fussed by this. We boarded the cable car for what is meant to be a spectacular ride, and saw little more than white. The conductor was telling a story for the duration of the ride, which had everyone in near hysterics, but our lack of German just left us awkwardly smiling. The lift has a change over in what appeared to be a small ski lodgement. We had a bit of a walk around and a play in the snow before taking the smaller gondola back into town.

The town as seen from the Mühlenbrücke — The town as seen from the Mühlenbrücke

The Gondola arrives in Kriens, a small town on the outskirts of Lucerne. A 10 minute walk takes you to the bus station and a 15 minute bus ride puts you back in the centre of town. When we arrived back in Lucerne, it was a little depressing, as we had just been having lots of sunshine and amazing views, and then we were back in the cold and grey. But we persevered with our touring of the town.

The area around the Mühlenbrücke — The area around the Mühlenbrücke

One of the many towers found on the city wall

We made our way through the old town, visiting the Kapellbrücke (the oldest covered bridge in Europe) along with its sister bridge, the Mühlenbrücke, just downriver. The area around the Mühlenbrücke was really nice, particularly as there was a sole tree with bright red leaves, whilst the surrounding trees were either non-deciduous or had already shed their leaves. The city walls were also quite impressive, with a seemingly redundant number of watch towers, which made for pretty viewing. We also stopped by a local chocolatier to pick up some offcuts, as Swiss chocolate is, in my opinion, the best that there is.

As the night began to fall, we headed to the brewery, which is situated under the town hall and right on the waterfront, which whilst cold, was quite nice, even if I did find their lack of Weiss beer just a little sad. Following this, to really embrace the coming of winter, we hunted down a fondue for dinner – which was delicious – and then retired for the evening.

Our Sunday was a little more relaxed, beginning with a late morning breakfast and a visit to the Löwendenkmal, or Lion of Lucerne, a giant wounded lion carved into the rock face to commemorate the Swiss guards massacred during the French Revolution in 1792. Mark Twain apparently called it “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world”, and it certainly is moving and quite beautiful. We then moved on for a look around the waterfront and a lakeside walk before heading to the Swiss transport museum. The complex is massive, constructed on an old train yard, and houses some hundreds of trains, planes and automobiles. It was a really good museum, with the highlights being the enormous mole (the tunnel boring machine kind rather than the mammal) and the high resolution map of Switzerland printed onto the floor in a room where everyone has to wear slippers and is given a stool which doubles as a magnifying glass. However, once we had had a good look around, it was time to head to the station and then back to our respective cities.

The only notable feature of this trip was found in the Bâle/Basel station, where the platform numbers increase linearly from left to right (as is normal) except for the highest number platform, which is hidden away on the far left and very poorly signed. And of course this is the platform for all France bound trains. So with only four minutes to spare on my change over, the lack of being able to find the appropriate platform was not entirely appreciated. But no real harm was done other than a little stress. Then it was on to Mulhouse and finally onto Paris, where it was back to the norm.

Adventures

Fun-icular