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Published: February 9th 2013
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Kapelbrucke
Famous wooden footbridge of Lucerne dating back, originally built in 1333 I have difficulty rolling myself out of bed. I’m in a study/guest room belonging to one of my best friends, Kristy, and her Swiss fiancée, Stefan. It’s below freezing outside and there’s still snow stolidly lingering from last week’s snowfall. And here I have a down comforter and a heater all to myself. But there is no rest for the wicked.
I’m here for only a few days, a stopover before my Israel adventure. This leg is not a sightseeing venture but a glimpse into Kristy’s new life in this far-away land. Far from her native sunny California.
We’re off to Lucerne today, an hour and some south of Winterthur where Kristy and Stefan live. Switzerland is a tiny country but still, a two-and-half roundtrip journey is nothing to sneeze at. Especially for a pregnant lady and the baby bump is just now starting to round out Kristy’s stomach and slow her movements and normally abundant energy. Of course, Stefan and Kristy did just go partying until 3 AM (an early weekend bed-time by Swiss standards) on Friday night before I arrived…
Lucerne is known for its picturesqueness, at the start of the famous Swiss alps. A classic
Fasnacht mask
This was in a purse store. This mask reminded me so strongly of the movies Willow, Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. Swiss city or so I’m told with peaked wooden roofs, cobblestone streets, and a couple famous walking bridges dating back to the Middle Ages (with some heavy reconstruction, of course). Driving there I get my first glimpse of the Swiss Alps, craffy, snowy, and starkly black and white. There are no rounded peaks, no flat-top mesas, but countless sharp peaks all named and known by climbers and Alps lovers. Mt. Pilatus, a row of three or four (can’t remember now…!) peaks, provides an iconic, epic setting for the opal-city Lucerne.
Lucerne is as charming as promised. I admit that the freezing temperature (it barely rises above freezing the entire day) is not conducive to gentle strolls or rambling explorations but we remain undaunted. Stefan and Kristy rejoice to find parking (a premium in tightly-packed old Swiss cities that actually discourage parking structures in their hearts) and we set out for the main Kapelbrucke (Chapel Bridge) that crosses the river diagonally with one quirky bend. The famous wooden triangular panels, showing episodes of Lucerne’s history dating back from the 17
th century (sort of, they’re recreations due to the bridge burning in 1933) are sadly all covered up now. Now there
are brightly colored whimsical paintings of all sorts that Kristy describes as adverts for various Lucerne businesses and activities. These are put up for Fasnacht, the pre-Lenten madness that shakes up the calmly industrious Catholic Swiss cities. Lucerne’s Fascnacht festivities are some of the more famous and stores and restaurants are clearly gearing up. We see distorted and goofy-creep masks in hat shops, high-end jewelry stores, and shoe stores. Multi-colored festoons decorate store windows and restaurant interiors. The bright decorations are currently at odds with the business-as-usual attitude.
We lunch in a restaurant built in the 1600’s that sports a beautiful mural on its building. I have my first taste of rosti which is, to my American senses, basically hashbrowns with cheese and other toppings. It’s perfectly delicious and I wonder what the Swiss would make of our breakfast hashbrowns. After lunch, we decide to charter a 6hr boat ride that will take us zigzagging all over Lake Lucerne. It’s a good way to sightsee without having to deal with a car and all three of us are lagging in energy. The boat is for tourists and residents, stopping at every little and slightly bigger village or settlement on
the banks of the river. The mountains are all covered in snow but the banks vary between wet green-brown and thinly white. The houses are muted pastels, more often just plain wooden brown. But sometimes there’s a flash-dash of bright geometric designs painted on the ubiquitous wooden shutters.
Our original destination was Rutli, a meadow that flared into historical glory when, in 1291, various Swiss importants swore an oath of confederation to join their warring cantons thus birthing the modern-day Switzerland. However, after reading Kristy’s Lonely Planet book again, we decide to nix this idea. After all, Rutli still is just a meadow and while that would be a great place to walk around and daydream about William Tell and such, an hour stopover would get long fast. So we stop at Brunnen, a modest village and after a few streets from the dock we see signs pointing out walking paths. We pick an easy walking hike where the distance, as in New Zealand and Australia, is in time and not distance. They must have timed the walk for the aged or the distracted because the 25 minute walk takes us 15 minutes. It wanders behind houses and along
View from Brunnen nunnery
Lake Lucerne is in the background and the Brunnen village before it. a clear cold stream with mallards and grebes floating and foraging on top. The path goes to a nunnery which Stefan was aware of (being able to read German…) though Kristy and I were not but it affords us a great view. And we head down to a cemetery at my request.
The cemetery is like none I have ever seen. Uniquely carved, shaped, decorated headstones of different colors, shapes, and styles. There are little “yards” of plantings, lanterns, urns and the occasional laminated photo. There’s even the cheap section where there are no raised headstones but crowded flat stone markers with decorations and momentos crowded closely together. After a bit, we head back to the water and have a coffee. I’m delighting in the chocolates that come with every coffee drink.
Lucerne is full dark by the time we return and almost everything is closed. It’s Sunday night and I learn that is absolutely not the day/night to be out and about and expect to do your weekly shopping. Like many other countries, Switzerland shuts down on Sunday, for both the Christian religious and the non. Our guidebook leads us to a restaurant that is closed and
Gorgeous headstones
This was in a Catholic cemetery so we wander back across the water to find something else. As we wander, hungrier and hungrier, I occasionally am stopped short by a glimpse of a fairy-tale. Something in the shade of yellow streetlight or the carved lamp posts jutting out from second stories. Or perhaps the sound our walking makes on the cobbled streets, old beyond old to my American sensibilities. After all, many stories we Americans grew up with were located in frozen Europe-lands, Germanic counties. So certain sights hold more than just quaint appeal for me. A loose magic wraps around them. An elaborate, medieval statue in a fountain, a spigot pouring out frozen water in a an old watering basin, a wooden barn with deep overhand to protect horses as they unhitch them, and the ever-present cobbled streets on winding, corkscrew turns.
We finally find a place and are escorted to the back where there is now no smoking allowed (a relatively recent phenomenon in Swizterland), as opposed to the pungent front bar-room. I try another classic Swiss dish, Alplermagronen. It’s like a fancy mac n’ cheese with applesauce. It’s good but more than that, it’s food! Finally we head back over the bridge
Swiss fountain
Almost all the fountains have some sort of sculpture like this. (we’ve crossed the footbridge about six times today) and head back up north.
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