To Luzern for lunch

Today, Chris had a "recovery day" from the long journey, and after a simple breakfast at an old-fashioned coffee shop at the end of our street (excellent, frothy coffee---"all our milk is lactose-free"---with a whole grain croissant), we decided to take a train, via Reiden, Sursee, and other stops, to Luzern. Chris wanted to find out how long his commute to work will take tomorrow and the answer is: less than four minutes. We had some difficulty buying tickets as our VISA cards once more failed to work in the SBB ticket machines. In the end, the information office sold me a couple of Tageskarten for the regional network costing 45 CHF each, more than I had anticipated. The ride was lovely though. Five minutes in, the countryside was already very pretty, with autumn colours still on the steep, wooded hillsides, and neat Swiss barns and farmhouses. We saw some industrial areas too, along the flat valley floor, but this country still seems more agricultural than industrial, the railway trucks loaded with turnips. We saw herds of cattle, well-established vineyards, and publicity signs in the fields such as "kartoffel.ch". We were sitting on the left hand side of the train so had a good view of the Sursee as we rode by it, a peaceful stretch of water with a bike track on the banks all the way along.

Unfortunately, no snowy mountains were to be seen, as there was thick grey cloud above us, and it was spitting with rain. We had our umbrellas with us, but didn't need to open them all day; sometimes the precipitation stopped or was no more than a fine drizzle, same as yesterday. Coming out of Luzern station the boat docks are straight ahead of you. It is hard to get lost in this town, the lake Vierwaldstättersee, grey and tranquil today, being the largest landmark. We could have taken a boat to various places on its banks, and later this week I might go back to do just that, especially if the mountains come out of hiding. The municipality is setting up a Weihnachtsmarkt with wooden stalls by the lakside, complete with a rather soggy skating rink, white drinking tents, and life-sized, white, model reindeer that nod their heads. Someone would be able to take a photo of you sitting in the romantic sleigh they pull.

What I remembered of Luzern from the time I last saw it, as an eleven-year-old on my first trip abroad, was the covered bridge with the skeletons (the Totentanz) painted between its roof-beams, conveying the message that Death is with us everywhere, and at every stage of life. The paintings are very old, 17th century, and the bridge itself even older, 13th century. What I hadn't realised or remembered was that there are actually two covered bridges, the aforementioned one, the Spreuerbrücke, and the Kapellbrücke closer to the lake, also adorned with historic paintings, although these are more documentary than allegorical. The Catholic faith seems prominent in Luzern; the Kapellbrücke had a shrine to the Virgin Mary at its mid-point, and the surrounding churches seem to be mostly catholic. Some of the larger buildings in the old town were originally convents or monasteries: Kloster (or Klosterli).

During our wanderings we discovered a large, good quality bookshop, such as there always seems to be in European towns, where we bought paperback books by the Swiss writers Max Frisch and Alex Capus. After a lot of hunting and enquiring we also bought ourselves an adapter plug for our Canadian devices which would fit into the deep, three-pin sockets they have here, like the German ones, but not exactly. The sooner there is an international standard for electric plugs and sockets, the better.

Near the river, market stall owners were selling sweetly smelling hot chestnuts, heissi marroni, in paper bags. For lunch we ate something far less Swiss, at a small Indian buffet restaurant, the Mirch Masala, serving very good food. The waiter brought us a basket of naan to go with everything else we chose. A party of Asian guests sat at another table, keeping their woolly hats on. Then we walked about the old town in random directions again, this being a way Chris likes to relax, till I needed another sit down, which brought us to a tea house on the upper level of the station concourse. At the lakeside, a high-spirited Swiss school party was posing for a photo, ordered to leap in the air as their teacher snapped them. The first attempt had them dangerously close to the water's edge, so she made them step forward for a repeat shot.

Our train back to Zofingen was an Intercity, bound for Basel.