Lucerne

Murren is a hard place to leave because it's lovely. It's easy to leave, however, in the most literal sense of the word, because the Swiss public transportation system is superb.

I could praise the tidy railway stations, the prompt train cars and the convenient schedules, but instead I'll rave about the snacks on the train.

Oh - and wait! Something delayed the server bringing our cheese, so she brought chocolate, too. Amtrak just doesn't hold a candle.

We were on a train called the Golden Pass, so I felt a bit like Charlie Bucket with his golden ticket. Especially when the scene out the window looked like a fairy tale.

After this countryside, can any city look good? Yes, if the city is Lucerne

Beforehand, I read  that Lucerne is 836 years old, that it was built on a hillside beside the River Reuss, that the old town is filled with car-free cobblestone streets, squares, churches, clocks and buildings with painted facades, and that the original, towered city wall still runs along the hilltop. But we stepped off the train - two typical Americans from a typical American bedroom community - unprepared for how pretty Lucerne really is.

This is the Kapellbrucke (1333), one of Lucerne's iconic covered bridges. Inside, the triangular spaces between beams contain paintings depicting Lucerne's history. The tower, called the Wasserturm, was part of the city's original fortifications and has served as an archive, a prison, and a torture chamber. We walked downriver and crossed the Spreuerbrucke ("chaff bridge" - 1408) also.  Its interior paintings follow a disturbing "dance of death" theme that makes the brothers Grimm tales seem benign and cuddly. I photographed it not.

This is a bronze (I think) map of Lucerne; the Total Package is pointing to our hotel in the old town, near the Kapellbrucke. The big building beneath his elbow is the train station, and Lake Lucerne is under his armpit.

We walked the old city wall, climbing into some of the towers, one of which contains a clock that's been working for hundreds of years. We stood beside the the cogs and wheels and giant pendulum, and shot arrows through the narrow slits, and poured boiling oil upon our nasty foe. Just kidding.

 

Of course every city needs a Starbucks. A tall black coffee cost about $7 American, so we shared, at an outdoor table by the river, and visited with a woman from Shanghai, who liked Lucerne as much as we did.

KIettersteig

The following is a quote from Rick Steves' guidebook on Switzerland, page 192.

Murren Via Ferrata (Klettersteig Murren)

Mountaineers and thrill-seekers can test their nerves on this one-mile trail along the cliff running from Murren to Gimmelwald.  A via ferrata ("way of iron" in Italian) or Klettersteig ("climbing path" in German) is a cliffside trail made of metal steps drilled into the mountainside with a cable running at shoulder height above it.  Equipped with a helmet, harness, and two carabiners, you are clipped to the cable the entire way...

...several hundred yards are literally hanging over a 2.400-foot drop.  I did it, and through the most dangerous sections, I was too scared to look down or take pictures...

Why I let the Total Package read the guidebook, I will never know. He doesn't even like guidebooks, as a rule, but now he knew about the Klettersteig. Here's a photo of the pictorial map; if you double click on it, you can see that the trail is an ominous bloody red line on the cliff between Murren and Gimmelwald.

"I have to do that," he said.

I considered my options, which included a nice walk above Murren, through fields of wildflowers with stops at dairies for freshly made cheese. However, we took this trip to be together, and besides, I know I would fret during every minute he was gone. So I went, like an idiot. Or like an awesome wife, according to the Total Package.

Most of these photos will be of me, because my husband carried his phone to take photos. Here is me, approaching the trail, blithely ignorant of my fate.

At first the trail wasn't bad, just narrow, with beautiful views.  We got an idea of our height, though, when we heard "woo-hoo!" and saw a parachute glide past.

You can see  him out there, looking like a fingernail clipping.  There were tiny towns in the valley below:

Next, we found a BASE jumping platform. BASE jumpers leap off wearing a wing suit, or parachute.  The console on the tree held a radio, so a jumper can call his/her team on the ground, and say "Goodbye, cruel world!" or something like that.

After that, things just went downhill. Wait. Strike that. I don't have adjectives to describe the way things got.

"You are amazing," the Total Package said, many times. I said nothing out loud, but over and over I thought, 'the Lord is my rock and my deliverer," and promised myself that afterward, I would find that passage in the Psalms and read it all.

We crossed three gorges, two by high-wire and the last and longest by swaying, swinging Nepalese bridge.

The Nepalese bridge can be seen from the Gimmelwald cable car. As I crossed, looking at nothing but my feet, the Total Package called, "You're being photographed!" Sure enough, there was the funicular next to me, with fifty people pointing their cameras my way. I dared taking one hand off the cable to wave.

The hike lasted ten more minutes after the bridge. From Gimmelwald, a cable car takes you right back to Murren. I napped that afternoon, then opened my Bible and found that Psalm.

Psalm 18

2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

6 In my distress, I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

19 He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proved; he is a shield to all those who trust in him.

31 For who is God, save the Lord? Or who is a rock, save our God?

32 It is God who girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.

33 He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

36 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.

49 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises unto thy name.

The Poultry Pact, and more

Thank you (those who know already, or are just learning) for your kind comments and prayers since last week, when my Dad learned he has Parkinson's.

Jesus will carry us - especially Dad - through this. We'll process this news in our brains, ask for God's help and do what we need to do.  My mom, my sister and I, however, will need to gather soon, drink too much coffee together, and make a solemn Poultry Pact. For Dad's sake and sanity, the following activities are forbidden:

1. Squawking
2. Clucking
3. Henpecking

In case you didn't know, Dad regards chickens with mild disdain, unless they're presented to him from the grill, covered in barbecue sauce. So keep up the prayers, please, for Dad, Mom, us.

"I don't much feel like posting about my fabulous trip when everyone's learning your news,"  I told Dad, on the phone today.

"Don't let that stop you," he said.

So this post will contain no chickens, but rather an animal much nearer Dad's heart.

At our first breakfast in Murren, the hotel owner served warm milk. We were supposed to put it in the coffee, but I drank both straight up. The milk was delicious.

"Swiss cows," said the  hotelier.

"Do they eat flowers?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

We finished breakfast and walked out of town, along the train track, past a ski lift called Winteregg (a cuter name I can't conceive - egg means hill) to the funicular. We took that, plus another train and funicular, across the valley to a place called Mannlichen, on the lower slopes of Jungfrau.

We hiked all through the mid-day, and ate picnic lunch on a cliff edge, looking straight at Eiger. Note to self: sliced hard-boiled eggs taste great inside a baguette, with meat, cheese & pickles.

The alpine meadows were green with an impossible greenishness, and walking, sprawling, and munching all throughout were the most beautiful cows. Their bells made a bonging, clanking sound that echoed off the rocks and cliffs and hillsides.

The raw edge of this glacier appears blue because the ice crystals are under enormous pressure, so they reflect back only the blue part of the spectrum.

Now wait - we here another cowbell, but where is the cow?

There he is.  Zoom lens to the rescue.

The hike ended at a place called Kleine Scheidegg (little something-hill), where you can catch a cog-rail train to the top of Jungfrau.  Jungfrau's peak was socked in with fog, so instead we took another train down to Lauterbrunnen.

That evening, we had fondue for dinner, of course.

"Cheese is a binder, let this be a reminder!"

-Yvonne Taylor

Into the Alps

I used a prepositional phrase title just for John Krakauer. Krakauer is an alpinist (mountain climber) who writes books with prepositional phrase titles like Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, Under the Banner of Heaven. He wrote a book about Eiger, the famous Swiss mountain that challenges (and kills) so many climbers, and - haha - it's not titled with a prepositional phrase. It's called Eiger Dreams.

Anyway, the morning after our palace/garden adventure, we walked to the lakeshore and caught a boat for Switzerland. The boat was a hydrofoil, which pleased the Total Package very much. Here is the dock at Baveno, with all the metal signs listing our stops along the way. At Locarno, Switzerland we disembarked.

In Locarno we boarded our first train, and so began our initiation into the Swiss public transportation system. We brought lunch, because changing trains five times in one day requires one's wits to be in order, which requires calories:

The track dipped back onto Italy for a while, and we changed trains in Domodossola. As we entered the Alps and then Switzerland, I just looked and took no photos. We changed trains in Brig, Spiez, and Interlaken.  In Speiz, several sweaty, sunburned, passengers boarded with climbing ropes over their shoulders and pickaxes dangling from their belts.

Us, on the train.

Our hotel was near Interlaken, in a a town called Murren. (This is going to drive me crazy, because there's an umlaut above the "u" in Murren and I can't make one!) To get there we took a train (twenty minutes) to Lauterbrunnen.

The next leg, on paper, confused us when we researched the route beforehand. A three-minute ride? Well, you can do only so much research and then the pleasant surprises begin. The next ride was a funicular, because Murren sits atop a cliff.

These are avalanche fences, built to protect the towns below.

After one more train ride along the cliff top, we arrived. Our hotel, the Alpenblick, sat beside the track (this was no bother, because the train made a pleasant rumbly rushing noise, back and forth). Murren is the end of that short line.

Do you know how you imagine yourself meeting a famous person, one you admire, and think how cool you might act in that situation, but deep down you know if it really happened, you would probably be silly, elbowing your friends, pointing and saying "look, there's so-and-so!" That's sort of the way I felt about Eiger, right across the valley, outside our hotel room window.

That's Eiger on the left, Monch (another umlaut) is center, and Jungfrau is on the right, hiding behind the rock face.  Monch (the monk) protects the young maiden (Jungfrau) from the ogre (Eiger).  Jungfrau is known as the "top of Europe".

Towns dot the valley below.  One of them, Wengen, was half-destroyed by an avalanche in the 1970's.  You can see the avalanche fences.

Murren is a popular ski area in winter. In summer, hikers and mountain bikers ride the funicular and train into town. The few cars in town belong to locals, for construction and hauling supplies.

Water troughs like this were all over town.  They're for thirsty hikers.  The iron-work chamois (mountain goat) was a recurring motif in the area.

Another chamois on the side of a train...

...and more in the meadow near our hotel.

This signpost sits mid-town. Note the brown Klettersteig arrow. Most writers will insert foreshadowing into their text without announcing its presence. I'm telling you now that this is foreshadowing.

Question:  What's so great about Switzerland?

Answer:  I'm not sure, but the flag is a big plus.

HA HA hah-haaa! (snort)