orwellianTwo

It’s time to leave Lucerne, and what better way to do so than by boat.

Lake Lucerne is about thirty kilometres long from its north-western point at Lucerne to its southern tip near Altdorf, which is where we’re heading. With the various jetty stops the ride will take over two and a half hours and every minute will be glorious.

About, ooh, halfway through we reach one notable stop, at Rütli.

Just to the left of this photo, rather rushed as the ships crew were organising the deck in preparation for anchor, there is a patch of open ground called the Rütli Meadow. A sacred spot for the Swiss, it was where, legend relates, representatives of the three founding cantons swore the Rütlischwur, the Rütli Oath, that marked the creation of the Swiss Confederation. A big photo to get for a blog that purports to talk about the history of places, so I tried to grab the shot as the boat moved in towards the jetty

Useless I am.

Fortunately, the scenery here never disappoints.

A few minutes out from my destination, we reach the chapel at Tellsplatte.

The Tell relates to that man again.

Once Tell had split the apple and saved himself and his son, Gessler noticed that he had an extra arrow in his quiver and asked him why. Tell, who had either no legal representation or a very bad lawyer, replied that if he had hit his son he would have fired the second bolt at Gessler. Who was not impressed.

Tell was therefore led away to lifetime imprisonment and taken onto Gessler’s boat. A storm broke and Tell, being a hero and brilliant at everything, was allowed to take the helm to get the boat to safety, whereupon he steered it into the rocks here and escaped, leaping onto this spot, Tellsplatte, Tell’s Slab.

The chapel marking the spot is sixteenth-century and note the paintings, they describe the legend. There’s a boat stop nearby and Swiss youngsters are dutifully led down to the slab to learn all about it. See the two arrow-like structures above and to the right of the chapel? Once Tell got away from his captives he followed the light from a torch held by his close companion, Robin Hood, and the arrows mark the spot where he met his secret lover Marilyn Monroe. The two shared a passionate kiss, jumped onto Shergar’s back, rode into the forest and were never seen again. No, I don’t know what those structures are for. Probably the top of a staircase.

And so we reach the shore near Altdorf, and the end of our wonderful ride. To the left is the small settlement of Flüelen. Ahead of us the mountains lead down into the Gotthard, the rugged massif that separates central, German-speaking Switzerland from the Italian-speaking south. Home of the famous Gotthard Pass that connected the two, it was of enormous key strategic and commercial importance as the Gotthard is almost impossible to traverse by other means.

Unless you build a railway through it.

The nineteenth century came along and with it, the railway. There had to be a faster way of connecting northern and southern Switzerland, otherwise for one thing trade between the North Sea and the Mediterranean would bypass the country. So the great Swiss industrialist and railway builder Alfred Escher decided to build a railway through the Gotthard and down to Lugano.

And our train is here and it’s time to get onboard.

The Panorama Express tourist train runs along the original line and is one of the world’s great railway experiences, another two and a half hours of your life that you won’t regret. The main coaches have large wrap-around windows so you can take it all in, but they are a little reflective so I didn’t manage to get many great snaps. The best place to take photos is to go to their special carriage with open windows, but be careful about leaning out. Here’s the church at Wassen.

And here it is again!

No, that isn’t a model railway, that really is the line we were on in the first photo.

Built between 1872 and 1882, the Gotthard Railway was recognised at the time as a world-class feat of engineering. Here at Wassen they had to wrap the line around the mountain in three spiralling levels of tunnels and embankments, meaning you get to see the church at three different levels. There’s another example of a switchback loop south of the main tunnel.

Main tunnel? At some point on the route engineering ingenuity was no match for the geography, and they had to roll up their sleeves and dig. When they were done, they had created the Gotthard Tunnel, at 15 kilometres the longest in the world at that time. When the tourist express reaches twelve kilometres in, it slows to a crawl, they turn the lights down and an audio-visual show plays out on the tunnel wall; sounds of workers digging, clunk of axe and spade on hard wall, pictures of diggers, pictures of Louis Favre, the engineer responsible for its design.

An interesting display, and sobering. Like any such undertaking at the time conditions were difficult and the work was dangerous. 199 workmen perished during the construction. Favre sadly died of a heart attack in the tunnel inspecting the work, and never saw its completion. Even Alfred Escher, overworked and stressed-out trying to get the thing finished, died in 1882 before he could take a ride himself.

Over a hundred years later, an even longer tunnel was built – the Gotthard Base Tunnel, at 57km the longest in the world, and the tunnel that carries the scheduled service between Lucerne and Lugano. The old tunnel is only used for this tourist train as well as a few local services. But of course, travelling in a 35-mile long tunnel means you miss a lot of the incredible views.

Which, well yes, I apologise for not taking more photos of. I eventually managed to make it to the photo car, but then I met up with a fellow passenger and got distracted, sorry.

To be honest he didn’t say much. But then again Herr Escher had already spoken loudly enough by giving us the magnificent railway we were travelling on. Good to see he had been given the chance to ride along it after all.

Eventually the train rolls into Lugano, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, at the very southern tip of Switzerland. Warm, Mediterranean feel, palm trees. Some photos from Lugano to make up for the lack of pics from the train.

And there’ll be a few more to come as I’m here for a couple of days. Ciao!

While the old town of Lucerne is worth seeing in itself, the real jewel here is natural – the glorious expanse of Lake Lucerne, gliding its way through magnificent mountain scenery.

We’re now going out on the lake, and when we get off we’ll join a mountain railway and head to one of the local peaks. Then do a short recce at the top, short because the clouds are in and it’s chilly up there. Then head back. Along the way I’ll talk a little more about the area and, at the end, introduce you to a very sad lion.

Here’s our boat, built in 1901, the oldest of the paddle steamers that work the tourist trips up and down the lake. It’s name, Uri is taken from a lakeside settlement (Stätt), one of the four (Vier) that border the lake (See). They are all heavily-forested (Wald) which adds to the beauty of the landscape. And also gives us the Swiss-German name for Lake Lucerne – Vierwaldstättersee. Not such a mouthful really. No, really.

In the last post I said that Lucerne joined the nascent Swiss Confederation in 1332. The three other lakeside settlements had already signed up, they were similarly hacked-off with the Habsburgs and their federation was up and running by 1309. Uri was one of the three, Unterwalden another.

Making our way south-eastwards along the lake now, and to the right you can just make out the town of Küssnacht am Rigi, which lies in a canton that was the remaining founder member of the federation.

Schwyz.

It’s lucky that Schwyz was there at the beginning in some ways. Unterwaldenland has a ring to it but sounds unwieldy, while Uriland sounds like a theme park full of lots of bent spoons. “Uriland has declared its neutrality!” “Wow, I bet they didn’t see that coming!”

Nearly there now. Out of shot to the left (sorry, I was having problems getting all the right shots) is Mount Rigi, at 6000 feet one of the peaks that overlook Lucerne and a major attraction. The boat slides gently into the stop at Vitznau, where one of the remarkable mountain railways the Swiss specialise in takes you on a 45-minute ride to the top.

Here’s the station at the top but a warning; the journey up is steep. Really steep! In fact it’s  around 60 quid and I bitterly regretted not getting the visitor’s card that would have earned a discount. The line runs at a high gradient in places as well.

Notice the cloud cover; had I stayed a bit longer it would have cleared and conditions would have been a bit more amenable for a bit of a hike, but I decided to take a couple of pictures and get the next train down to the warmth of the boat. So here they are.

As Switzerland grew in influence during the Middle Ages and more communities joined, stories began to appear claiming to chronicle the origins of this powerful nation. Mountains, forests, glistening lakes, hardy independent mountain people…you can almost see the legendary and the mythological arise from the hillside like mists burning off in the noonday sun. And sure enough, by the late 15th century the chronicles were starting to refer to one particular name, one particular resident of Altdorf in Uri, who was apparently there at the birth of the Confederation, and a dab hand with bow and arrow.

His name was William Tell.

Looking astern as the ship heads home, looking roughly in the direction of Altdorf (although it’s much further down the lake at its southern end). By the 18th century their boy’s legend was all in place – the struggle against the evil Habsburg representative Gessler, his refusal to bow to Gessler’s hat, Tell being punished by being forced to shoot the apple on his son’s head, Tell eventually killing Gessler and helping to found the confederation. Soon Schiller had written his play, Rossini his opera and overture and the Lone Ranger was riding off to it.

Surprisingly early you might say, by the mid-eighteenth century, scholars started to raise doubts. It turns out that various Germanic peoples told stories of heroes forced to shoot stuff off their sons’ heads. One such was the Danish figure of Palnatoki, and when a book appeared in 1760 making the link, one of the authors was invited to re-critique his historical analysis from a different textual perspective. The perspective of being put to death unless he withdrew his claims. Funnily enough he agreed with this line of argument. Meanwhile they burnt the book in the main square in Altdorf.

To this day – as we’ll see in the next post – Tell’s story is at the heart of Swiss national foundation myth and Swiss self-identify, despite it being as full of holes as Swiss cheese. But it’s a great story, and it goes well with the dramatic, epic landscape. Which we’ve come to the end of, as our boat has returned to Lucerne

By the jetty we find that the old town isn’t stuck in the past – this is KKL Luzern, the cutting-edge cultural centre designed by Jean Nouvel and opened in 1998. There’s one other landmark I want to show you, we didn’t see it last time as it’s a few minutes away from the other places.

Switzerland is known for its neutrality, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t know how to fight a good war. From the medieval period onwards its mercenaries were prized across Europe – for example the Swiss Guards that ceremonially guard the pope to this day (they didn’t always stand on ceremony). The Swiss also guarded the French royal family, until the revolutionaries ran into them in 1792. About 800 Swiss Guards were killed or massacred, and in 1820 the Lion Monument was carved in their memory.

Look closely and you’ll see the broken spear in the side of the brave but dying lion, as he draws his last breaths over shields bearing the fleur-de-lis and the Swiss coat-of-arms. Mark Twain was particularly moved by this monument, and coming from a great humorist writer that’s saying something.

Whatever your views about the French Revolution – and Swiss liberals were enraged when it was first displayed – it’s an incredibly moving piece of work. And however much you cherish your William Tell stories, this is one tale of Swiss heroism that is definitely true.

A short train ride down from Zurich takes you to Lucerne, historic, stunningly-placed, beautifully well-preserved, Switzerland’s most touristed city.

First off there was a medieval monastery somewhere around here, the point where Lake Lucerne drains into the River Reuss, and eventually a prosperous little trading town grew up. The Habsburgs acquired the locality, but the locals didn’t fancy any of that so they joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1332.

There were plagues, religious tensions with neighbouring Protestant cantons, and a temporary takeover by revolutionary France, but Lucerne continued to grow. Industry came, so did the railway, and that brought extremely fashionable Victorian tourists, including Queen Vic herself, to enjoy the city’s spectacular location. And Lucerne remains an upmarket destination.

To start off, let’s take a quick whizz through the main sights.

We’re in the Altstadt, the Old Town, and we’re heading onto the Kapellbrücke, the Chapel Bridge. One of the symbols of the town this 14th-century covered wooden bridge is almost unique in Europe in the paintings lodged in the triangular gables in the roof. In fact only one other bridge in Europe has this feature. Commissioned in the 17th century the Chapel Bridge’s paintings show scenes from the town’s history and the lives of locally-venerated saints.

And there’s a gap. Not because the citizens forgot to keep making their payments to their Seventeenth Century Netflix account and missed out on Series II.

The bridge almost burned down on 18 August 1993. It had 147 paintings beforehand but was left with only 47 and they only restored 30.

That’s the sad story behind these empty gables. But it could also represent a deep breath to prepare you for the remaining paintings.

The ones about martyrdom, beheadings and dismemberment.

Apparently one of the saints martyred in these paintings is Leodegar, or St Leger. The result of the stewards’ inquiry is, sadly, not shown.

Rather missing from the tourist blurb about Lucerne and its lovely bridge don’t you think?

But what you certainly do see is the sight that thankfully greets us at the other end, the Kapellbrücke paired up with its lifelong pal, the Wasserturm, the Water Tower. Together with the bridge, built thirty years afterwards, this stalwart of the town’s fortifications is not only Lucerne’s most famous sight, but Switzerland’s.

Now, on the south bank of the Reuss let’s pop into the Jesuit Church. It’s a Counter-Reformation offering built in 1666, and Counter-Reformation churches are all about lavish, gold-plated restatements of Catholic doctrine to get the waverers back onside.

And that means magnificent interiors and above all, eye-popping ceilings.

Nearby is the Franciscan Church with its stunning pulpit

Back on the riverbank we find the Needle Dam, an interesting 19th century construction that uses an alignment of moveable staves – the “needles” – to restrict the water flow when necessary.

The dam allows the outflow from the lake to be increased to 430 cubic metres a sec…ok, you’re not following me, and it’s my fault.

I shouldn’t have showed you those distressing paintings from the Chapel Bridge. At the time I thought they would add something to the blog, but I should have realised that it might upset you. You’d probably preferred to go to that other bridge in Europe I mentioned where they have the paintings in the gables, they’re probably pretty and nicer and they’ll cheer you up.

Wait a minute, wait – a – minute, what’s that thing next to the Needle Dam, why it’s the Spreuerbrücke. It’s the other bridge!

Right, here we go then. Spreuer, or chaff, as it was the only place they could dump the chaff from cereals. No fires recorded. All good. And the paintings?

All about the ever-presence and inevitability of death.

Well, I did my best.

On the north bank now, and a quick look at some of the beautiful frontages in the Altstadt…

before we make our way up to the town’s remaining fortifications

and take in the view.

Back down into town for a meal an a rest, and we’ll end the day with a nice evening view of picture-postcard-friendly, tranquil old Lucerne, beloved of tourists the world over.

And not a skeleton kicking around a human head in sight.