Another warm, sunny day by the lake in Lucerne. I caught the train from the main station in Lucerne to Alpnachstad where the cog railway took me to the terminus station near the top of Pilatus at 7,000 feet. The cog railway is the steepest in the world, rising 1600 metres during a journey of 4.6 kilometres. There are steeper funiculars. The system in use on the Pilatus Bahn is the only one of its type in the world and was invented by Eduard Locher in 1885.
Once back by the lake, I walked to the Swiss Transport museum, which is open on Mondays. The exhibits are vast and comprise all types of transport, especially mountain railways. On the same ticket as the transport museum, I visited the Hans Erni Museum, named after a wonderful artist who should be more famous than he is, judging by the range of subject matter in his paintings. He did an amazing painting of Lenin that was just a few lines, but those few lines gave a strong impression of the man’s determination.
The last part of the afternoon I spent on the lake, doing a roundtrip on a steamer and taking pictures of all the places I couldn’t photograph from the land. Lake Lucerne is beautiful and picturesque.
My time in Lucerne has been enjoyable, almost perfect really. I can see why there were so many tourists here from abroad, but let’s hope they don’t spoil things for the locals.
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