Day 25 ~ Seeing the Lucerne Scene

Today was our much-anticipated first ride on the Golden Pass. These are famously scenic panoramic trains that travel from Lucerne, right in the center of the country, through Interlaken near us, to Montreux in the west. Being in the middle of this route already, we took the slightly unorthodox path of going to Lucerne and back. The little tables on the trains provide this fun map:

It was forecasted to be by far the rainiest day of our time in Switzerland, and spending it on a scenic train sounded perfect. Would it be too rainy to make exploring Lucerne pleasant? Would it be too rainy to see the scenery? We didn’t know, but this still seemed like the best rainy-day idea we had.

To catch this train at the time we wanted, we needed to get up a little earlier than our vacation o’clock. We had some setbacks in the morning, but were relieved to get to the train just in time for the train we needed…except we didn’t. We were sure we were there on time, but that train had clearly come and gone. We were bummed, thinking we couldn’t get to Interlaken in time for the Golden Pass train we wanted. But we gamely got on the next train, and made our way to Interlaken – just in time to catch the train we originally wanted! We had made it! First win of the day.

The train, it turns out, is a completely ordinary train, which we had kind of suspected. We expected it to be golden, or at least festooned with ribbons and flowers like a Swiss cow, but it was just a train. Still, Daniel had figured out the scenic side of the train to sit on, and wow was it! If we missed a lot of distant snowy mountains due to a low cloud deck, we will never know, but what we did see were dramatic forest-covered mountains, one beautiful glacial lake after another, charming Swiss towns nestled along the lakefronts, and rolling countryside.

Of course there really were a lot of clouds, but it created a whole very Pacific Northwest rainy effect that reminded us of our beautiful Columbia River Gorge.

We’d seen Lake Brienz from above at Harder Kulm yesterday, and today we got a close-up view of those unforgettable glacier blue waters.

We passed by one town in particular that had at least a mile of waterfront that was used exclusively for being beautiful – grass and benches as far as the eye could see.

Very pleased with our Golden Pass experience, we arrived in Lucerne. There was a whole mall in the train station, with clothing stores, multiple grocery stores, and all kinds of services. We made a beeline for a pharmacy in the train station – Daniel had been unable to find reasonable cold medicines in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and we were happy to find a helpful Lucerne pharmacist with that sweet, sweet cough syrup. Sadly Daniel’s at the tail end of that cold, so needed the medication days before, but better late than never.

Some European cities require a bit of walking to get from industrial train tracks to something neat to see. Some (like Amsterdam) drop you right into the action. We were very happy that Lucerne was in the latter category. A step outside the train station, and it was immediately gorgeous. This is the Chapel Bridge, a wooden pedestrian bridge lined with hundreds of boxes of flowers:

We were headed to the church whose spires you can see in this picture:

We walked along the waterfront toward Hofkirch cathedral. Mercifully, it wasn’t raining at all, even though this was forecasted to be the rainiest part of the day. As we walked, the clouds lifted even more, and we could see towering Mount Pilatus looming over the city. The arrow is something Daniel added, not original to the landscape.

The outside of the Hofkirsch chruch was gorgeous, and featured a beautiful burial ground.

The Hofkirsch was perhaps more ornate than the churches Stef has preferred, but it’s always impressive to think about the decoration accomplished with 15th century technology.

Here are the of wooden doors with the patron Saint Leodegar seen here holding a gimlet:

Stef was impressed with this ironwork:

This church had a more lived-in feel than many of them, with a Sunday school area right in the cathedral, and a display of babies’ pictures on little fish ornaments to celebrate recent baptisms. It was so out-of-character for these historic cathedrals that a puzzled English-speaking tourist asked us what it was.

We headed out of the cathedral – still no rain! – to where Stef would have her most spiritual experience of the day. This was the famous Lion of Lucerne at the Gletschergarten Löwendenkmal, a memorial carved into a stone quarry. It’s a symbolic piece, a mighty lion pierced with a lance, gasping his last breath. The Swiss Guard was hired to defend the royal family in France during the French Revolution. When revolutionaries stormed the castle, the entire Swiss Guard was slaughtered. This is their memorial. It’s extremely moving all on its own. It also reminded Stef of our own little lion, Berry, who cleared the way for this trip to happen.

Daniel was very happy to see that another lion was keeping watch on the scene.

We walked on, and ducked into a very inviting cheese shop – we hadn’t explored much Switzerland cheese (not to say Swiss cheese), having brought some Dutch cheese with us, but this was the place! Stef had been waiting all trip long for a cheese-buying experience like this. The cheese man talked us through options and carved us off sample after sample of cheese – emanthaler of course, but also some regional specialties, and we settled on a local cheese wonderfully called Pilatus.

We thought we were about to get very rained on, but we walked on. We found a bit of the Museggmauer wall. This was built between 1200 and 1400. Now, it is in remarkably good condition but is more useful as a bird habitat than for defenses.

We’d have loved to follow the wall more, but we were short on time, hungry, and pretty sure the rain would start in earnest soon, so we headed back in the direction of the lake and into Lucerne’s delightful Old Town.

We hadn’t seen a lot of Swiss Old Towns, just a bit in Basel, which had its old elements, but was also slick and modern in many ways. Lucerne’s was similar but much more quaint. It was commercially vibrant, with a mix of old and new. There were European chains like Rituals and Cuckoo Ice Cream, but also American chains like Foot Locker and Claire’s – it seems like everywhere we went, we bumped into a Claire’s. It’s hard to imagine the American mall stores are doing well, but Europe is keeping the Claire’s dream alive.

The thrifty Lucerne Swiss hadn’t sunk their fortunes into stone cornices and stucco frescoes – they painted on their decorations, and it looked just swell.

We saw the Town Hall clock tower:

We had reached the river, and now it was time to find our designated lunch spot – we were thrilled to be headed to a place called Fondue House du Pont to get a long-anticipated tourist meal of melty Switzerland cheese. We found it, but then…where was it? A hard-to-interpret sign led us over here…

…then over here…

Finally we had arrived, and this place was FUN. We had the place to ourselves at first, and this was a very attentive and high-end dining experience, with a view of the river.

The fondue was excellent, and we left very satisfied.

It was time to wind things down and get back on the train, so we headed out to do a few last things. We found a cute little spot for a quick espresso, then headed to the waterfront. These are the faces of bellies full of cheese and hearts full of Lucerne:

We were very excited to walk along the totally charming Chapel Bridge, which leads across the water to, you guessed it, a chapel. This really exceeded expectations.

The bridge had once been decorated with dozens of paintings dating from the 1400s. The bridge was actually destroyed in 1993 when a fire tore through it. We can only imagine the horror of the people of Lucerne seeing this exquisite piece of history on fire like this. It was surely comparable to seeing Notre Dame aflame in 2019. There were pictures of the fire on a plaque; it was very sad. Most of the paintings were destroyed, but a few had been saved, and they were positioned at the start and end of the bridge. Here are some:

Here is a bit of char from the fire:

And with that, it was time to head home. We’d planned a whole rainy trainy day, and although there’d been some rain while we were on the train, we’d had dry weather that had allowed us to explore Lucerne – much to our surprise. There’d been a forecast of half an inch of rain from noon to 4, and instead, we’d hardly gotten rained on at all. It made for a surprise of a wonderful day.

The prospect of rewinding that beautiful trip to Lucerne was as exciting as the trip here had been. Once again, the scenery was outstanding, and if anything, there was less rain and fewer clouds.

Truly, the journey was the destination on today’s trip to Lucerne. Like yesterday’s trip up to the Niederhorn, getting there was every bit as much fun as being there. And that’s what they say about life, right? It was a wonderful day.