Day 2, Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Itinerary: Zurich to Lucerne

Time awake: With the time changes and little sleep, hard to respond

Odometer (in kilometers/miles) at start: n/a

Weather: Nice, a little on the warm side

Steps: 15016

Asleep: Pretty early

Map Link(s):

We landed in Zurich on schedule at 1 PM local time, which for the entire trip outside of Iceland would be Central European Summer Time (“CEST”), which is six hours ahead of EDT. We wandered around Zurich’s modern airport, found both the train kiosks and ticket office, and opted for the latter. Perhaps that was a mistake. The line was short, but the customers in front of us must have been negotiating train fare to Saigon or some such place since they took so long. It took us very little time to purchase our train tickets to Lucerne, but at $63.85 for two one-way tickets, they cost about twice as much as I was expecting based on information from an apparently inaccurate or dated source (or we got ripped off).

After locating our train track, we were puzzled by which train to board, but with a little help from some other commuters, we found the right one and learned that there were first class riders and standard ones. Our tickets were for standard. The ride to Lucerne, or Luzern as it’s spelled there, took a little under an hour. The view of Zurich was hardly picturesque, but once we got beyond this congested metropolis, the view improved very nicely. Along the way, the train stopped at the town of Zug, where my friend Van Jones’s one-time girlfriend from Dakar now lives.

From the train station in Lucerne, we hiked the 0.8 miles to The Hotel Bed & Breakfast at Taubenhausstrasse 34, where we had reservations for two nights. After checking in, chatting with the very friendly young lady at the front desk, and examining our room, which was small and had no TV but a nice view, we headed out to explore Lucerne.

I had plotted a course for day 1 in Lucerne, https://binged.it/2MfJXdt, which we ended up using more as a rough guide than a template. We headed straight for the center of town about three-quarters of a mile from our B&B and crossed the famed covered Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke) that spans the Reuss River a few hundred feet upstream from where it flows into Lake Lucerne, known locally as Luzerner See. It’s a lovely area, what with the covered pedestrian bridge, river, cafes, and mountains off in the distance. Our next stop was to be the Jesuit Church, but we couldn’t find it and walked aimlessly for a spell. As we’d experienced earlier after starting from the train station to our our B&B, the GPS on our phones was unreliable, even downright screwy when first activated. It would direct us one way, then seconds later the opposite way. This would prove to be a recurring theme of the trip, and needless to say it was frustrating, particularly since we seldom had a good paper map.

The next stop was The Lion Monument or the Lion of Lucerne (Löwendenkmal), a relief sculpture of a mortally-wounded lion, which Mark Twain dubbed “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.” I will say it’s the most mournful and moving piece of stone I’ve ever seen. The only downside was that we were by no means the only one there to imbibe the beauty—there must have been a couple of buses of others, in large part Asian, in attendance. Even so it’s an idyllic garden spot by a peaceful pond and it’s free to visit. The nearby Glacier Garden (Gletschergarten), however, was not free to visit, so we passed it by.

After a few twists and turns we came to a very long and steep set of steps, so we hiked up. At the top we were greeted with a lovely view of Lucerne and Lake Lucerne. Continuing on, we strode right by the entrance to Museggmauer (the Nine Towers) & Türme because we believed it was elsewhere since that’s were Bing Maps had it. But as luck would have it, we decided to traverse up a side path and soon found ourselves at the bottom of the long castle wall with those nine towers. Amazingly, anyone can climb up the wall and through the towers and all at no cost. And that’s what we did, and it was a thrill, particularly since we’d stumbled upon it and the beautiful views if afforded of the city and the lake below and the mountains beyond. I shot one photo after another with my new Sony 6000e mirrorless camera, but it started acting up, and I was worried it was malfunctioning. Sharon was confident that I just didn’t know how to use it. She turned out to be right.

Leaving the Nine Towers behind, we turned a corner and were back at the Reuss River near the end of town at the Geissmattbrücke. We spotted a charming restaurant and considered dining there but continued on and stumbled upon, again largely by luck, the Wirtshaus Galliker at Schützenstrasse 1. I had read in one of the guides that this rustic, wood-paneled restaurant was not to be missed. But it looked closed. So much so that we almost didn’t try the door. But we did, and the place was packed. So we took a couple of seats beside four local men and ordered Kügelipastetli Gemüse and two Grosses draft beers from the matronly waitress, whom I don’t believe spoke English, which was very rare in Lucerne. The four men were finishing their four identical meals and soon began playing a card game we did not understand. Our dinner consisted of a puff pastry with beef, gravy, carrots and potatoes. It was a delight, as were the two local drafts. (Note: One of the appendices to this log is a list of all the different beers we had on the trip and rating given them on the www.untappd.com app.) Unfortunately, I didn’t take a pic of it. Tipping did not seem to be an option, so I didn’t leave one, making this a most affordable dinner at 34 CHF ($35.04), which was $0.47 less that the swill we’d had at Jack Duggan’s Pub.

By the time we left the Wirtshaus Galliker, evening had descended upon Lucerne, and what a lovely sight it was along the river. We soon came upon Mill Bridge (Spreuerbrücke), thinking it was the same covered bridge, Chapel Bridge, that we had crossed earlier in the day, despite there being clear structural and geographical differences between the two. (As might be expected, not knowing that Lucerne boasts two famous covered bridges threw off my navigation of the town.) We then walked along the river’s edge and were mesmerized by all the inviting cafes and bars, trying to figure out which one or ones to visit tomorrow. We stopped at the Bistro Krienbrüggli, a little outdoor café about a half block from the river, where we enjoyed a couple of local draft beers. A guy who could easily win a Van Jones look-alike contest sat beside us. (I sent Van, a very close old friend of mine, a pic of the fellow, and he concurred.)

Then it was time to navigate back to the B&B, which we did without too much trouble. Along the way, we spotted some nice women’s lingerie in the window of a shop, but it was of course closed. Back at the B&B, I raided the communal refrigerator in the dining room area for a couple of Luzerner Biers, one for Sharon and one for me. Before going to bed, I’d make that trip twice more, grabbing another beer each time. On one of those ventures, I spotted a couple outside having the same difficulty opening door that we always had. So I let them in. Getting the key to work in that door was like cracking a safe. In our room, I plugged in the laptop we’d brought along. But it died, or so we thought. A few days later I managed to get it working, sort of, but it was never the same and we hardly ever used it. (Note: the laptop was only a few months old, and died shortly after the trip. I suspect that the 220 voltage supply used in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe damaged it, although any modern laptop should have been compliant.)