Chapter 34: Lucerne by the lake

Ah, Switzerland! Where do I begin? I have wanted to visit Switzerland all of my life. When I was a child, I bought a paperback picture book of Switzerland and devoured the images. I read all about it, did a fifth grade poster project on the country and wrote a seventh grade screen play of the story of William Tell. I suppose I've outgrown some of the intensity of my youthful passion for Switzerland, but when given a chance, I think it is important to honor childhood dreams and try to take care of unfinished business. Last weekend, I finally visited Switzerland with Lawna. The friendly and beautiful country fully lived up to my expectations. Everything is ridiculously expensive there, but it was worth every Swiss franc.

boating on Lake Lucerne

Why be obsessed with Switzerland? Even as a youngster I was fascinated by the fact that the Swiss have managed to stay out of all the wasteful bloodshed that Europe has committed upon itself for the last thousand years. Switzerland is in the geographical center of Europe's historic suicidal wars, yet always manages to stay neutral and unmolested. Even Hitler found Switzerland too much trouble to attack.

Of course, its mountainous geography is of key importance. Even today, it would be difficult to take this small country. The borders are open--we sailed through without showing our passports--and long, immaculately maintained tunnels whisk you through the mountains into the center of the nation. Those tunnels make travel through an otherwise difficult terrain easy, but they can also be closed or even blown up in case of a threat. Switzerland can easily be made impenetrable. The whole country is a natural mountain fortress, and the Swiss have hundreds of years of history surviving in those mountains. They also have an armed military in which service is compulsory for every young man. The Swiss have the best roads and rail system in the world. They have made one of the most difficult terrains in the world easy to get around in and easy to close.

Also, the Swiss have the oldest democracy in the world. They have been holding elections since the thirteenth century (though women gained the right to vote only in the late twentieth century). Their long lasting, steadfast unity is particularly notable because they incorporate four distinct cultures: German, French, Italian and Romansch. Every Swiss child learns the four official languages, and most everyone in the cities speaks fluent English. Once you've been raised with four languages, what's so hard about learning one more for global banking purposes and tourism? The ancient success of Swiss multiculturalism is a good counter argument to the fear in many countries of "Balkanization" if different languages and cultures are allowed to develop in a single political system. The Swiss can be suspicious of people outside their familiar multicultural sphere, but overall, multiculturalism and multilingualism are the essences of their success.

The Lucerne Löwendenkmal (Lion monument), commemorating Swiss guards who were massacred in the French Revolution

And then there is the sheer beauty of the country. Switzerland is the home of the Alps that Byron, Goethe, Wagner and other Romantics rhapsodized about in verse and music. Germany, France, Austria and Italy contain parts of the great mountainous spine of Europe, too, but not with the same level of grandeur. Switzerland is the crown of the Alps, peaked by the mighty Jungfrau, the object of so many nineteenth century works of art! Switzerland consistently inspires everyone who visits. The English entrepreneur Thomas Cook essentially invented Swiss tourism in the nineteenth century. Parts of Switzerland had always been popular on the Grand Tours that noble families sent their sons on, but Cook opened the country's riches to ordinary folk like us. Many of Switzerland's hotels date back to Cook's century, reflecting the graceful gentility of early tourism. Today, much of Switzerland's tourism comes from China. Johanna Spyri's classic children's book Heidi, which has never gone out of print,  is still read in practically every language on the globe and draws children into a lifelong fascination with the country. Tourism and banking are the main industries and help to maintain one of the highest standards of living in the world.

So, once we had a three day weekend to devote, I suggested to Lawna that we visit Lucerne (Luzern in German). The Swiss border is a four hour drive for us, and once across, Luzern is not too far off. We left early on a thickly foggy Saturday morning and drove mostly through French farm lands to reach the border and passed through light rain, heavy gray clouds and expanses of blinding fog along the way. The weather was not looking promising. I was afraid that we would reach Switzerland and not see a single mountain.

Luck was with us. As soon as we reached Basel, which straddles the three borders of Germany, France and Switzerland, the clouds began to dissipate. The countryside, which had grown a bit monotonous in France, almost instantly became more beautiful. A tunnel took us under much of Basel, emerging in an industrial area. Once beyond Basel, the highway began to meander into the foothills of the Alps past tidy, picturesque communities. More tunnels came, one quite long, and the drive was amazingly easy. At one point, we pulled over to a roadside stop for a bathroom break, and used the cleanest roadside facilities I have ever seen. Everything about Switzerland, at least in the part we saw, is clean. Some graffiti disfigures the cities (probably unavoidable in our age of DIY public art). Mostly, Switzerland was just clean and neat.

Luzern

We arrived at Luzern at about mid afternoon, checked into a small hotel in a pleasant nineteenth century block of old luxury row houses, kind of a Swiss version of New York City brownstone houses. Our second floor room overlooked a grammar school and some ornate Swiss public buildings. We had an appealing, quiet spot within easy walking distance of the old town center. We stowed our stuff, slung cameras, picked up maps from the affable desk clerk who spoke fluent English and took off to explore the environs. By this time, the weather was sunny and cool with just a few fulsome clouds scudding back toward the mountains.

Our hotel

The street where we stayed

Luzern is a vivaciously attractive city with an appealing blend of medieval storybook charm and nineteenth century grand hotel haut. A channel of clear lake water runs through the center of town, spanned attractively by walking bridges from different periods. The most famous bridges are two medieval wooden walkways, one of which, the Chapel Bridge, is adorned throughout with painted murals depicting the Totentanz, or dance of the dead. Death is not something one thinks too much of when visiting Luzern today, but back when the bridge was painted, townspeople were intimately aware of death and plagues. Some of the images are pretty ghoulish, but mostly today the bridge is loaded with tourists from all over the world, especially Asia, armed with cameras.

Altstadt

We crossed the wooden bridge into Altstadt (old town), found a hotel restaurant on the lake's edge and ordered lunch. This was my first experience with Swiss prices. The meal was tasty and the bill was a shock. Clearly, the Swiss francs I had withdrawn before we left were going to go fast. Fortunately, the Swiss are less resistant than Germans about accepting credit cards. After all, the Swiss are the premier bankers of the world.

Chapel bridge

Death taking a child in the Totentanz sequence.

Chapel bridge at night

 We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the old town and the started back toward our hotel to make plans for dinner. We lost our way a bit, and a tavern waiter offered us some direction and invited us to a band concert later that night. After we reached our hotel and sort of regrouped, we went for some dinner and then visited the tavern on the way back. The club was full of what appeared to be mostly Swiss people. Schweizerdeutsch has a unique lilt, quite different from the sound of Pfalzerdeutsch  in our region. The band played a mix of German songs and popular American light rock, like James Taylor covers. What they lacked in polish and English diction, they made up for in enthusiasm. The crowd was most appreciative and supportive. The club was promoting the band with free drinks and food. I guess Switzerland isn't always expensive. We stayed for awhile, not knowing how long they would play, then slipped out and returned to the hotel. We had had a long week of work, a long day of driving, and it was all catching up on us. We went to bed. The hotel beds were simple, with white sheets and a single white quilt. With the second floor window ajar, the cool night air afforded spectacular sleeping.

When we awakened the next morning to take advantage of the hotel's complimentary pétit dejeuner, we felt refreshed. We made our way back to downtown and headed toward the boat ticket office next to the train station. In the early twentieth century, steamer boats took visitors out on the lake for relaxation and fine dining. Today's boats are more modern with a second class deck at the bottom and a first class luxury deck on the second level.  I bought a pair of second class tickets, which cost plenty, and we streamed in with other tourists to claim benches on the deck. We found empty spaces across from a young Chinese woman, and settled in for our mini lake voyage.

Once the ship started off across the lake, we asked the woman across from us to take our picture. She happily agreed (the result of which appears at the beginning of this blog), and then I reciprocated by taking her picture. We struck up a conversation, discovering that she had traveled to Europe alone to see the sights. Her name was Teresa, and she had just visited Paris and scenic Grindelwald near the Jungfrau, and after two days in Luzern would be headed to Prague. To us, she seemed pretty brave to take off on her own like that. Her English was excellent, and she and Lawna continued to talk while I prowled the ship taking photos.

1848 Steamer Rigi

Today's tour boats

Teresa and Lawna

Mt Pilatus

Grand hotels on the lakeside

The boat companies offer several tours. The most popular is an excursion to Mt Pilatus, which rises majestically behind Luzern and boasts the steepest vernicular train in the world. We selected an alternate tour to Mt Riga, mainly because it afforded more time on the lake. Once we arrived at a transfer point, we boarded a red train with Teresa to chuff up the side of Mt Riga. Of course, it is an incredibly scenic ride with occasional pauses for photos. The snow covered summit is crowned by a hotel and enormous broadcast tower, which visitors are free to climb part way. Lawna and I had dressed for cold weather, but the temperature was mild and snow melted like rain off the tower. We had been been blessed with a clear day and could see for miles over the lake and mountain ranges.

Lake Luzern from above

view from Mt Riga

After spending some time hiking around the summit and taking photos, then having some lunch and buying some souvenirs, we returned to the train stop to wait for the next ride down. During this time, we lost contact with Teresa, took the train halfway down the mountain and then caught a cable ride the rest of the way down. The boat ride back was relaxed, sitting in the restaurant drinking coffee. After returning to Luzern, Lawna and I wandered the city some more until we became hungry; then we found a Swiss fondue shop and enjoyed a shared pot of savory fondue with glasses of local Swiss wine, which they do not export.

After dinner, as the sun began to sink, we were about ready to head back to the hotel when we encountered Teresa again. She was very happy to see us and asked if we could have dinner together. We had just eaten a full meal with some pretty heavy cheese, but we wanted to join her. It turned out that she wanted to try Swiss fondue also, so we found another fondue restaurant and, while she sampled fondue, we ordered dessert and coffee. She did not like her fondue, but we had another friendly visit and exchanged e-mails for future communications. 

Lawna and Teresa

Our Swiss weekend was nearly over. Traveling is exhilarating because everything is new, and friendships made on the go can be amazingly intense as you try to fit as much into the time available as possible. Even if we never see Teresa again, which is quite probable, she will always be in our hearts whenever we think about Switzerland. 

The next morning, I still had one more place that I wanted to see before we took off for home: Altdorf, the mythical home of William Tell. Historians are now quite certain that William Tell never existed. The roots of his legend have been found in old Danish sources. But, just like you can't tell some Texans that Davy Crockett died as a common prisoner in front of Santa Ana's firing squad, you can't tell some Swiss that William Tell is just a legend. He is their national hero!

Altdorf is a small village at the far end of Lake Lucerne, easily accessible by the lakeside highway that speeds you around the shore and tunnels you through the tall cliffs. The weather had grown colder and more overcast. I could sense the difference between Lucerne and Altdorf. The inhabitants of Tell's town were hard working people, and no one we met spoke English. It's closer to the real Switzerland (though still a tourist spot). I paid homage to the mythical hero of Swiss independence from Austria, and Lawna and I climbed the Altdorf tower, which today is a museum tracing the development of the William Tell legend as a Romantic icon of liberty. You can climb to the top and look out over the picturasque village.

Altdorf from atop the tower

William Tell monument in Altdorf

After exploring the town square and purchasing some pastries at the local bakery, we jumped back in the car and drove toward Uri, also associated with the Tell legend, further into the mountains. The road meandered upward, and soon we were in some high country overlooking small villages and farms. Farms also surrounded us on the mountainsides with sheep and goats grazing on remarkably steep pastures. We were amazed at the vertical plane upon which Swiss mountain people build their houses and farm their livestock. As we got out of the car to take some photos, we could hear the tinkling of Swiss cowbells. Yes, they still identify their livestock with those iconic bells. There was a chill in the air with an slight icy bite, reminding us that we were getting into higher, colder altitudes. I would have liked to keep going through the upcoming mountain pass toward the county of Glarus, but we had a long drive home ahead of us and jobs and appointments to keep in Germany. We enjoyed the Alpine quiet for a while, just the still, cold air and the echoing of bells against the mountainsides. It was truly that quiet, with the infrequent swish of a passing car on this lonely road. It was hard to break away, but after letting it sink in, we got into the car, turned it around and headed back to Germany.

Small hamlet in Uri. Click to enlarge and note the clinging farm houses and pastures to the left.

Photo Album:

Interior of Jesuitenkirche, Luzern

Jesuitenkirche at night

 view from Mt Riga

Grand Gutsch Hotel, overlooking Luzern

sharing a tune

old steamer and amusement park by the train station

the modern

Long, shaky video of our trip to Lucerne with some old music recordings by yours truly:

Chapter 33: At home in Germany

Spesbach

Most of my blog entries have been about trips that Lawna and I have taken, mostly around this area. The majority of our time, of course, is spent around home or at work. When it is a daily routine, it seems unexciting to write about, yet it may be more interesting to those who are curious about how we are living and getting along.

our apartment building

We live in a ground floor apartment in the small village of Spesbach, about 15 minutes from Ramstein Air Force Base. The morning commute is easy. Our apartment is fairly old, built probably in the 1950s, maybe even earlier. It's hard to tell here in Germany. Old buildings are often so well maintained. I think we have some buildings in this town that date to the 1700s. Our building is four storeys high, with two American service men living on the two floors above us and a German divorcee and her teenage daughter living in the attic apartment at the top. They have quite a stair climb each day. I don't think that any buildings in our town have elevators. Even in cities, only the most modern buildings have elevators--usually hospitals. When people move into upper level apartments, their movers must lug all the furniture up manually. These are strong dudes (and sometimes dudettes). Consequently, most German furniture is smaller than American. We brought a sofa from the US which could not fit through the door to our German living room. We had to park it in the dining room and buy a smaller German piece. Once you get used to the smaller scale, American furniture begins to seem oversized and obnoxious. There are some furniture stores in Landstuhl that cater to American tastes, but we much prefer the sleeker lines on display at German home stores like Möbel Martin.

view from our back patio

Our apartment has no air conditioning, and it does get hot in the summer. Of course, it's not nearly as hot as San Antonio, and the hot period lasts only a few weeks, but that can be a few weeks of misery. Fortunately, our ground floor apartment stays pretty cool. We are surrounded by shade trees and sunken partly below ground level, so our configuration produces a cavelike effect. In our first summer, we ran fans for only a few days. Sylvia and her daughter upstairs, though, must have had a miserable time. For heat in the winter, we run steam radiators. Most Germans keep their windows open during the winter. That sounds crazy to a south Texan, but if you close up your house with steam heat running, you will develop an unhealthy mold problem. So, the windows stay open a crack with the steam heat cranked to a comfortable level, and in the morning you open the windows wider to air things out. Germans don't put screens on their windows. Some Americans insist on them, but most landlords won't pay for them. We've been going native without them. No problem so far. I've been bitten by mosquitos in the woods, but not in the house. We occasionally find long legged spiders in our bathroom, but we just coexist peacefully.

spider webs in our back yard

Apart from the distant sounds of planes from the air base, it is remarkably quiet out here at night. There is pretty much no crime (at least none that I've heard of) and we feel completely safe to walk anywhere, even at night. Nothing much is open at night, so there's seldom a reason to walk anywhere. We do have a friendly gasthaus nearby, across a field in the adjoining village of Hütschenhausen, where we like to order jägerschnitzel and drink beer. We sometimes walk home past the soccer field and through a grove of trees near the farmfields in the dark. It can be pitch dark, lit only by the moon, if there is one.

neighborhood Gasthaus

Appliances are smaller here. We have a fairly spacious kitchen, yet little workspace. It's hard to pitch in together preparing a meal. It can take awhile for our landlord to fix things. When Michael and Victoria visited in July we were washing dishes by hand because our dishwasher was not working. We finally received a replacement yesterday. It's not all our landlord's fault. We're all kind of busy and have trouble coordinating availabilty, and, truth be told, I kind of enjoy washing dishes by hand. It's challenging with one small single-well sink, but the routine is enjoyable. Our landlord is a reliable man, probably about my age, and friendly with a thick Pfalzer accent. Instead of ja, he says yo. I enjoy his visits. He is very handy with repairs and never forgets to complete a job. However, he does operate on country time. After awhile living here, I really don't mind.

Our washer and drier are European style--energy efficient and deadly slow. It's easy to spend a whole day on wash. The barrel capacity is low, so washing requires more loads than in the States, but they do a good job. Our laundry room is much bigger than the glorified wash closet that we have in Texas, and the doors are thick and when shut keep out most of the washing noise. In fact, we have all of the building's utility meters and control centers in a central room in our apartment, so if anyone has a plumbing, electrical or internet problem, the repair people have to come into our apartment. The steam and plumbing make all kinds of racket anytime anyone in the building is showering or laundering, but the thick, solid German walls and heavy wooden doors successfully block the sound from other rooms. Unfortunately, Michael and Victoria had to sleep in the utilities room with all the gurling noises. If it bothered them, they didn't complain.

Our walls are rock solid. Hanging anything requires a strong masonry bit. We initially bought some wall hangings to brighten up the place, but finally gave up trying to mount them. We would like to get our deposit back when we leave, so we'll just live with spartan walls. German ceiling lights give off mostly soft white light with a subtle mix of colors, like though a prism, and create interesting effects on plain white walls. They partly compensate for not having wall hangings.

All of the apartments above us have spacious balconies, even the attic flat at the top (which is really quite nice. I helped Sylvia carry up a big bag of catfood and she showed us around.). Our apartment has a ground level concrete patio with well shaded landscaping. Lately, spiders have been spinning beautiful webs on the adjoining fences and across bushes, and the effects are stunning, especially in the morning when they are bejewelled with dew drops. We also have a neighborhood black and white cat that we love to greet. He has the run of the village and may be the father of the rest of the cat population, and has gradually become less wary around us. We don't know who he belongs to, but he's a regal looking guy.

Germans love dogs. There are numerous dog training centers in the area, and many people take walks in the country every morning and evening. German dogs are generally very obedient and many walk side by side with their masters without a leash. They are welcome in public places such as restaurants and stores, and I have never felt uneasy around one. Some of the breeds are pretty big! I wish our dogs, which are still in San Antonio with our son Brian, could have grown up here. Our golden retriever Rascal would have loved running through the fields without a leash. Of course, we would have had to get him properly trained. Dog owners are responsible for their dog's behavior and droppings.

fields for walking (with or without dogs)

It's a peaceful life that I will miss when we return to San Antonio. Germans around here tend to be reserved compared to the French and respect privacy. They are not unfriendly, as some Americans perceive them to be. They can be direct and plain spoken; they don't mince words and don't politely suffer fools. Sometimes store clerks can seem a bit unfriendly, but I was told that smiling is often interpreted as flirting, so female clerks tend not to smile much. If you need help, however, they will usually stay with you until you are satisfied. Restaurant servers never rush you, even when it is closing time. Once your food is delivered, no one interrupts you again. You have to ask for your check. If you sit and wait for it, it will never arrive. Once you inhabit a table, it is yours until you are ready to leave. Tipping is generally unnecessary. Servers are paid better than in the US. Tip only if you really like the service, and then give it directly to the server when he or she picks up your payment. In Germany, a tip is an authentic act of appreciation, not an obligation.

Spesbach soccer field and biergarten

When we arrived, we bought a flat screen television at Saturn (Germany's equivalent of Best Buy) and a salesman with iffy command of English managed to maneuver us into buying a new 3D set and blu-ray player. 3D strains my eyes, but we have it anyway. None of our stateside DVDs or Blu-rays will play on it because of region restrictions, but I have found several beloved movies that are not available in the States. Also, it is a smart TV with an internet connection, so we haven't bothered with cable or satellite. We can pick up BBC news and Huffington Post, along with Euronews and Die Welt (in German). Mostly, we just rent movies on the base and buy a lot of blu-rays. We don't miss cable TV. Walks in the country are more fun, even in the winter.

downtown Spesbach

Germany has bicycle trails everywhere, and I love using them. If you have the stamina, you can bike anywhere. The hills can be pretty crazy. The main boulevard on the base is not well equipped for bicycles, though many people bike to work, and the nearby city of Kaiserslautern is pretty scary on a bike, at least downtown, perhaps because of all the newly arrived American drivers. Most businesses have bike racks for parking, and they are well used. German bikes stores sell much greater variety than in the States, including hybrid motorized bikes that give you an extra push up steep hills, and a host of carriers, panniers and baskets. Many people rely on their bikes. I see quite elderly people tackling hilly streets, weighed down with baskets full of groceries. It's easy to stay healthy here.

Spesbach bakery

My Hütschenhausen bike mechanic is a portly retiree who runs a bike shop out of his home on a back residential street. It's a shop that you definitely have to look for. In fact, the actual show room with merchandise is in his basement, completely invisible from the street. But, people in Hütschenhausen know where he is. The business has been in his family for two generations, and he doesn't speak a word of English. With my nominal German, we communicate with a lot of hand gestures, and sometimes long, uneasy pauses ended with a hesitant "Wie gehts? Alles gut?" (What's up? Everything OK?) We have become sort of minimally communicative pals, and he has helped me out a lot. Despite my meager German, he has invited me to visit any time, whether I need work done on my bike or not, just to hang out. He has a retired friend, Fritz, who does speak some English, and sometimes helps us out. Both are retired, one fixing bikes and the other riding bikes and operating ham radios. They like to stand around and complain about German taxes. My own German is slowly improving. I can often say what I want to say, but when a German replies, speaking rapidly, I can't understand the response. I have to say "Langsam, bitte. Ich spreche nur einige Deutsch." (Slowly, please. I speak only some German) Life is fun.

road to nearby Katzenbach

We have our discomforts in life, but most are from the outside: job stresses, some health issues and anarchist House members back home whose government shutdown abuses make remaining here seem even more attractive, despite the fact that our own government isn't paying us. But, Germany has its problems too. Mostly, this is a good time for them as the strongest economy in Europe, but the last election demonstrated the fissures, with Angela Merkel winning pretty handily, but facing a stubbornly divided government. Polarization seems to be a theme nearly everywhere. Perhaps it has always been this way and we just tend to view the past from a distorted rear view mirror. A good bike ride, a pleasant walk and a nice glass of wine as the sun goes down makes it all seem far away. I have my best friend with me, and she's all I really need.

Spesbach war memorial