Switzerland
September 10-20, 2023
Mike and Judy Henderson
In this installment we depart Interlaken and travel to Bern and Lucerne
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9/18/2023 (Monday) Our luck ran out today. We've had very good weather throughout the tour, but this morning we're going to get rain. It wasn't raining as we loaded up on the bus about 9am.
But by the time we got on the road, it had started raining fairly hard. In this picture we're behind the Casino, which is almost next door to the hotel.
It's not a long way to Bern, about an hour.
With the rain, I couldn't take any pictures out of the bus windows. We arrived in Bern about 10am at the Bärengraben, or Bear Pit, for a rest stop. The bear is a symbol of the city of Bern and is featured on its coat of arms. The Bärengraben is a designated Swiss heritage site of national significance. I found it to be a pretty depressing place.
There were two bears that I could see in the pit.
And,
It had been raining for a while when I took these pictures, and I'm sure that didn't make the pit look any better. Although the bears looked to be in good condition, I felt bad for them being confined to this jail. We were told that they had extra room somewhere unseen, though.
Our guide for Bern, Beatrice Dähler, met us at the bear pit, and she led us to the Rosengarten. It was raining fairly hard at this time so only a part of the tour group went to the garden.
Here are a couple of pictures of the garden. Note the surface of the pond in the second picture - it indicates how hard it was raining.
From the garden you can look down on the city of Bern and the Aare River, which makes a loop through Bern. Here you can see a part of the river on both sides of the picture since we're looking down on the loop.
This picture from the web shows the loop in the Aare more clearly. At the upper center of the picture is the Kirchenfeldbrücke. The bridge on the far right is the Kornhausbrücke. The larger bridge in the foreground is the Nydeggbrücke. I do not speak German, but I think German runs words together. To my knowledge, the word brücke means "bridge" so you would not say Kornhausbrücke Bridge because the "bridge" part would be repetitive.
Two rain maidens in the park - Jean and Judy. Regenmaidens?
We proceeded to the Nydeggbrücke.
And then to Kramgasse. In the forward area of the picture is the Kreuzgassbrunner fountain and at the end of Kramgasse you can see the Zytglogge Tower and its clock.
A view of the Zytglogge as we got closer. The camera focused on the rain drops on the window. I'll have clearer pictures later.
Albert Einstein lived in Bern at 49 Kramgasse from 1903 to 1905, working for the Swiss patent office. He lived with his wife, Mileva, on the first floor (European numbering) above the restaurant on the ground floor. The apartment is now a museum. Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 so he must have done a majority of the work on it in Bern.
We drove around the city and I took a few pictures out the bus windows, but they were not very good with the rain.
We did drive under the Kirchenfeldbrücke on our route.
A bit later, we could see the Bundeshaus through a rain-splattered window.
The good news is that the rain started letting up, and we were able to take a walking tour in the area of the Bundesplatz, including some central government buildings.
Our group looking at the farmer's market across the street.
A view of the farmer's market. Note the name "Sichlete". This is an annual September festival where the farmers present their animals, products and customs to the urban population.
They even had some cows on display at the market.
This is the time for the Désalpe, the Alpine cattle descent. The cows have been grazing for about four months in alpine pastures, and are brought down for the winter. It's a major festival at this time of year. Later, we saw a parade of people celebrating the Désalpe (but I didn't see any cows in the group).
We walked near the Käfigturm, a lesser known clock tower.
Then we walked past the back of the Zytglogge tower. We still had a few minutes to wait before going to the front of the tower for the magic moment when the animated figures begin their routine. This is one of the oldest operating clock tower in Europe. The oldest still operating is the Prague Orloj Astronomical Clock.
Lots of trolley wires here, too.
We walked by the Kindlifresserbrunnen (child-eater fountain). The fountain was completed in 1546, but the meaning of the ogre eating the children is not clear. Follow the link for more information about possible meanings.
A closer view of the figure on top.
Here's a close-up view of the figure, taken from the web, that is taken at the level of the top of the fountain. Pretty strange statue.
Then we walked to the "front" of the Zytglogge tower to see the animation at noon. Note that it's about 11:55 right now.
At noon, the bells started playing and the figures at the right side of this picture began moving. Some of our group did a video of the show, but I did not.
After this, we went to the elegant Belleview Palace Hotel for lunch.
Judy and I had a cappuccino, which came decorated with the figure of a bear (symbol of Bern) in the foam.
After lunch we boarded the bus for the trip to Lucerne (or Luzern as the Swiss spell it).
Upon arriving in Lucerne, Carrie took us to see "Lion Monument". The dying lion has a broken spear in his side.
Some background: A regiment of Swiss Guards had long served the royal household of France. At the time of the French Revolution, on August 10, 1792, revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace to overthrow King Louis XVI, who, unknown to the revolutionaries, had left the palace. The Swiss Guard fought the revolutionaries but were overwhelmed, with as many as 760 killed. About 100 Swiss Guards escaped the Tuileries. 300 others survived because they had been sent away to guard grain conveys. In 1817, 389 survivors were honored by the Swiss Federal Diet with a commemorative medal.
The losses in the battle led Switzerland to question the policy of providing mercenary soldiers to the royal households of other countries.
The monument is a memorial to the Swiss Guards who died in the battle.
From here, we went to the Schweizerhof Hotel on the shore of Lake Lucerne and checked in. It's an older hotel but has been nicely renovated. Here's a picture of our room on the first (European numbering) floor.
A view of the lake from our room.
Our bus driver, Peter, left us at this point. But he left us with a short video of our trip. You can see it here. It's very good because it shows the route we followed during this tour.
We had dinner in the hotel that evening. Here are Judy and Jean at dinner. Service was fairly slow - I gave up waiting for dessert but Judy and Jean stayed and said the dessert was great.
That was the end of our day. Tomorrow we take a walking tour of Lucerne.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9/19/2023 (Tuesday) Today is the last day of the tour. Tomorrow is departure day (for most people), although we will stay for one additional day.
At 9am, we met in the lobby and broke into two groups, each with a local guide. Our guide is Hanny Felder.
We first went to the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge). The bridge was originally built in 1365 as part of the fortifications of the city. In 1993, it was destroyed by fire but subsequently rebuilt. The link about the fire has some excellent information including pictures of the fire and the rebuilding, but it's in German. Google will translate the site for you. Well worth looking at.
Here's the entrance to one side of the bridge.
A view of the whole bridge - taken the next day.
A view of the interior of the bridge.
Some of the charred timbers from the 1993 fire.
From here we went to the Jesuitenkirche, completed in 1677. As you can tell from the name, the church was founded by members of the Society of Jesus, also known as Jesuits. A view of the exterior, taken from the web.
And a view of the interior.
A closer view of the altar area.
And the organ in the rear of the church.
Next we went to the Franziskanerplatz where the Church of St. Mary is located. There's a fountain in front. Water flowing from each city fountain is quality drinking water, and you can see a man filling his water bottle in this picture.
Then to the Reusswehr Needle Dam which is used to regulate the water level in Lake Lucerne.
Quite a bit of water flows past the dam. There are four rivers that flow into the Lake Lucerne, so it adds up to a lot of water.
Just down the river is the Spreuerbrücke, a covered footbridge originally built in the 13th Century.
At the end of the bridge I saw these bent and laminated timbers. How they bent timbers this size is beyond me.
We went by the Weinmarkt brunnen fountain (Guardsmen fountain).
Some detail on the fountain.
And a closer view of the figure on the top.
Some of the houses in the area are richly decorated.
We walked by the Town Hall Clock Tower.
A closer look at the clock.
We passed a building that was painted for the Mardi Gras (Carnival).
Next we came to the Fritschibrunnen (Fritschi Fountain). From what I could find on the web, this is a "new" fountain, built in 1918 and is an important part of carnival in Lucerne. It looks like Brother Fritschi is an imaginary character. But both he and his wife are depicted as mask on the side of the fountain
Close-up of the masks on the column - taken from the web.
A bit better look at the guy on top of the column. This is not Brother Fritschi but a standard bearer. I had a difficult time finding information about this fountain.
We had the rest of the afternoon off until we met about 5:30pm for a trip across the lake to a restaurant for our farewell dinner. As we were pulling away from the dock, I took this picture of a sister boat, exactly the same as the one we were on.
As we were sailing across the lake, we had our picture taken - Judy, me, and Jean. They may have a speed limit for boats on the lake because the boat went very slowly, and other boats seemed to do the same.
As we were sailing on the lake, I saw this strange elevator shaft. It's the Hammetschwand Lift - another link here. It's the highest exterior elevator in Europe at 502 feet. It was first built in 1905 but has been updated several times. It takes guests up to the hotel on top of the mountain.
Here's a better picture of the lift, taken from the web.
And the lower station of the lift, picture from the web.
There's also a funicular to the hotel.
The trip across the lake took about an hour, but we didn't go directly across. The captain wanted to show us some of the sights on the lakeshore.
Eventually, we arrived at Hotel Baumgarten, where we'll have our farewell dinner.
There was a man waving a Swiss flag at the dock to welcome us. As it turned out, he would provide all of the musical entertainment during the dinner.
Just before we disembarked, he played the alphorn for us.
We gathered in front of the hotel, and he entertained us with some music and the flag dance. Then Carrie took a group picture.
Then we proceeded to the hotel for dinner, which was held on the hotel patio. It was a perfect night for dinner in the open air.
After the dinner, as we walked back to the boat, there was a quarter moon rising over the mountains.
It took a bit less than an hour to get back to the hotel. As we came to the dock, I took this picture of the Schweizerhof Hotel, where we're staying. The building on the left is not part of the hotel, but the building on the right is, and that is the section where our room was located.
We went to our room and immediately to bed. That was the end of the tour. Tomorrow, most of the guests will be leaving, but we have to stay one additional day because of our flight arrangements.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9/20/2023 (Wednesday) We're on our own today. The non-stop flight from Zurich to LAX was not available on the 20th so we have to spend a day in Lucerne and depart Zurich on Thursday. We slept a bit late and then the three of us met for breakfast.
Judy and Jean decided to go to the Rosengart Museum and I'm going to go to the Swiss Museum of Transport (Verkehrshaus der Schweiz). Both are within walking distance from the hotel - the art museum is maybe 5 minutes away but the transportation museum is 2km, so it's a bit of a walk.
When I left to go to the museum, I took a picture of the wing of the hotel that we're in. Our room is on the same floor as the Schweizerhof sign, and is behind the windows at the "SC" and "IZ" of the sign.
It was a pleasant walk. There's a wide walkway flanked by trees along the lake.
The museum is huge, and covers all types of transportation. Here's an aerial view of the museum, from the web.
I started in the aircraft section.
A display of early and modern dirigibles.
A very early aircraft engine. It is "open crankcase" to save weight.
A WWII era radial engine used on the DC-3 and other planes. I think this is a Pratt and Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp.
They have a large outdoor exhibit area which included a DC-3.
I was running out of time, but I went to the ship area and took a few pictures. This is a low pressure articulating cylinder steam engine for a ship.
I took a few other pictures but I had to get back to meet Judy and Jean at noon, and I had a fairly long walk to get there.
I ran into Evelyn and David as I was walking back, and gave David my ticket to the museum. I don't know if he was able to use it.
Along the way, I took some pictures of the outdoor statuary.
It looks like people have been getting on the horse. Note how the saddle area is worn.
They put a fence around this statue.
Another horse and handler statue, also showing signs of people getting on the horse.
Judy and I walked around old town for a while and met Jean at the Manor Department Store. We went looking for a restaurant, but first stopped in a Victorinox Swiss knife store and purchased several of the vegetable peelers that Carrie recommended, as gifts for our friends back home.
Then, about 2pm, we went to the Heini Restaurant, also a Carrie recommendation, and had a nice lunch.
I went back to the hotel to take a nap and to work on this blog, while Judy and Jean sat on a bench at the lake. I took this picture from the balcony of our room.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening, and that closed out our easy-going day.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9/21/2023 (Thursday) We head home today. I received a notice from Swiss Air that our flight would be delayed almost an hour but since we're on a non-stop from Zurich to LAX that doesn't affect us very much.
The hotel picked up our bags a bit before 9am and we headed to the lobby for our 9:15 limo pickup. I noticed that the van was loaded and the driver waiting, so we left a bit early.
Jean and Judy in the van, as we headed to the airport. It was about an hour drive.
It was a beautiful morning, with some wonderful landscapes. Our driver offered us the scenic route rather than going immediately to the main highway, and we appreciated it.
Our driver was a very nice guy. When we arrived at the airport, he got a luggage cart for us. Here he is unloading the luggage.
Check-in with Swiss Air was quick and easy - not much of a line.
Then we went through security and had to take a tram to Terminal E. We were in the first car of the tram and I was able to take this picture of the tunnel as we went through it.
We cleared customs at terminal E (I suppose that's the international terminal) and then went to the Swiss Air lounge to wait for our flight, which was scheduled to depart about 2pm.
At 1pm we left for the gate, E23, and had another very quick passport check. Here's the aircraft at the gate, a Boeing 777-300ER
We were in the front of the line and boarded quickly.
Here's Jean on board.
And Judy.
And then we were off!
We settled in, the cabin crew served a meal, and we tried to sleep. Standard airplane stuff. After about 11 hours we arrived in LAX.
The limo driver met us outside the International terminal. We were heading into traffic but it wasn't too bad and we were home about 7pm.
Judy and Jean wanted something to eat before we went to bed so we went to Blaze Pizza and got a pizza for dinner. Then it was home and to bed. We were all exhausted.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9/21/2023 (Friday) As usual, we were up about 3:30 this morning. But we used the time - I did some work on this blog, and Judy started some laundry.
Jean leaves for Bend, OR this morning and we have to pick up the girls (dogs), so we combined the two into one trip. First we picked up the girls. That's Lizzie on the left and Annie on the right. They were happy to see us, but they had lots of good experiences with Greg, our friend who loves them as much as we do.
The we went to the Santa Ana airport to drop Jean off. We enjoyed having her with us and hated to see her leave.
And that was our trip. Our next trip is a cruise from Barcelona to Cape Town later this year. I hope you'll ride along with us on that one, also.
[Update: A local magazine - Villa Park The Hidden Jewel - did a story on our trip to Switzerland. You can see the story by clicking on the link following Villa Park Magazine article on Switzerland.]
Click here to go to our main travel page