Rail Tour Through the Alps

(Note: Clicking on any image in this travelogue will bring up a full screen version of the image.)

Thursday, September 1
Lucerne to Zermatt

If I have one complaint about this tour, it would be that we just didn't have enough time in any one location. We'd just get a glimpse of someplace, or explore a couple of areas, and then it was time to board the bus, or gather for dinner, or catch the last cable car. There were places we saw for an hour where we could have spent a day or more. The perfect example was this day, in which we were scheduled to visit three cities, travelling two legs of the journey by coach and two more by train.

And the rushed schedule got off the the perfect start just after we got out of bed when we were greeted by a knock on the door from the porter, there to collect our bags which should have been packed outside our door for pickup by 7:30. I had missed that announcement. So still not dressed or showered, we scrambled to pack suitcases, while trying to figure out what had to be stowed, and what had to be kept in our backpacks for use during the day. I hate that. Something always winds up in the wrong container. We headed downstairs for breakfast.

Let me amend that first paragraph. I do have one more complaint. Breakfast. My idea of breakfast does not jive well with the Swiss version. Breakfast for me is generally a simple affair involving mostly things like eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. The Swiss set out a buffet with a vast array of exotic things like cheese and fish and fruit and I don't know what all else. Which is all fine. But not for breakfast. Oh, they do have eggs, usually scrambled, cooked to within an inch of their life, and served in a large tureen. And cold by the time I get them and all the rest of the stuff back to the table. They also have bacon, but greasy and underdone (I like mine crisp and crumbly) and cold by the time I get it back to the table. They do have very nice freshly baked bread, which needs to be sliced and put in the toaster while everything else on the table gets cold. And they serve coffee in cups the size of a shot glass, but packed with all the coffee essence that comes in an extra large cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, so strong that it needs to be cut with another shot glass of milk and ten or twelve packets of sugar before I can drink it. And it's cold by the time the toast is done.

We convened at the bus around 9-ish. Our itinerary was to travel by road from Lucerne to Gstaad with a brief stopover in Interlaken. From there we'd continue by train to Montreux. After a couple of hours on our own in that town, we then were to take the bus again to Zermatt, except the last few miles were by a shuttle train, as no diesel or gasoline powered vehicles were permitted in Zermatt except for police, fire, and other such vehicles.

As we left Lucerne, we got our first long look at the Swiss countryside. It seemed as if even the most rural areas were landscaped by gardeners kidnapped from the staff of the formal gardens at Versailles. The grass was trimmed with cuticle scissors and micrometer, and the borders between forest and meadow laid out with a draftsman's French curve and lined out with masking tape. It reminded me of those Venus Paradise color-by-numbers drawings I used to do as a kid. Grass and forest and mountain and road and lake and sky and cloud and house and barn were each rendered in their own colored pencil by some artist who stayed within the lines, and filled each numbered area more solidly than I ever did. (See photos 1 through 4.) The Swiss are very neat. And God bless 'em.

We laid over in the lovely town of Interlaken, situated, as its name implies, between two lakes. We only had about 45 minutes so we didn't have time to do much more than poke our noses into the main street and a public park before we had to be on our way. We could have spent a day there. I was struck by the juxtaposition of the old and charming buildings (Photos #5 and 6) with the modern and charming fire hydrants (Photo #7). We had time to stop into a gift shop where Jenny picked up some post cards, while I bought a universal electric plug converter to replace my faulty one from home. We took a quick stroll through a park along a canal between the two lakes with a lock to interest the engineer in me. There are some things that can't be captured in a photograph. Like the cool air and the warm sun that felt so delightfully fresh in that park. But we had no time to linger and enjoy, for tempus was fugiting, and we were off again.

We continued on by coach to the town of Gstaad, where we disembarked at the railway station there, and boarded the Golden Pass Express, the "world's slowest express train" to Montreux. Looking at the map above, one might wonder why take this extra step, especially since that leg of the trip is so short, and the coach was going to continue onwards to pick us up in Montreux later anyway. Well this tour was entitled "Alpine Lakes And Trains", and the Golden Pass Express is one of the worlds scenic trains. Photos 11, 12, and 13 above give some idea of the ambience. And the map below will give you some idea of the tortuous path the line takes into Montreux. Photo #14 was taken from the last complete leg of that switchback.

The route was almost entirely single-track, with sidings every few miles where a train going in one direction would wait while one from the other direction would go past it. Perhaps this was the reason why I saw almost no freight traffic on the rails while in Switzerland. The sidings are too short to accommodate the longer freight trains. I'll bet they use other newer routes that are double-tracked, with larger radius curves, and gentler grades, that tunnel through the mountains, rather than climbing them. Jan told us that large truck traffic going through Switzerland without stopping for pickup or delivery within the Swiss borders is banned from the roads. Instead, they are loaded onto rail cars and transported in that fashion. This has the benefit of lowering pollution, and keeping the roads relatively free of truck traffic.

That descent into Montreux was more than a great change in altitude. The language switched from German to French. The landscape morphed from alpine to Mediterranean. The trees changed from pines to palms. And the temperature changed from 60 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We were in a different world. And some of us weren't dressed for it. (I was proud of myself. Even in the confusion of emergency packing, I had read my itinerary, and worn shorts.)

Montreux is a Jet-Set vacation spot allegedly frequented by movie stars, royalty, and other such Beautiful People. If I encountered any, I didn't recognize them as such, and they didn't come up to me and introduce themselves. It certainly seemed an appropriate place for such people to inhabit. We spent our allotted two hours roaming through a park on the shore of Lac Léman (also known as Lake Geneva) with all sorts of sculpture, artwork, fountains, entertainments, food stalls, and beautiful flowers and other plantings in profusion. Amongst the items of interest were:

--Photo #16: A pavilion, empty at the moment, reminding me much of one at the Jersey Shore.
--Photo #17: A ground-level fountain, much in use on this hot afternoon.
--Video # 19: A whimsical animated mechanical "sculpture".
--Photo #20: A stage for free performances (None were scheduled during our brief stay)
--Photos # 22 through 25: Flowers, flowers, and more flowers in profusion typical all through the park.
--Not shown: A life size statue of Freddy Mercury (of the band "Queen"), who made his home in Montreux. (Jan was a fan, and insisted on singing bits of "Bohemian Rhapsody".)

Again, I could have spent at least a day here. But all we had was two hours. Back on the bus for the long drive to Zermatt. As we headed out, Jan alerted us to look for a chateau (whose name I've forgotten) belonging to some rich dude (whose name I've forgotten) which is purportedly the most photographed building in Switzerland. So much for fame. But I did take a photo (#26). (Says Jenny, "The Chateau de Chillon is famous, and visible from the road as we headed out from Montreux.  I looked it up, and it's "set on a rocky spur on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva" (Lac Leman).  This book says 'Its origins probably go back to the 11th century but its present appearance dates from the 13th century.'  These youngsters with their constant renovations...It does have visiting hours: let's go in next time we're there.")

Photos #27, 28, and 29 were also taken from the bus leaving Montreux. This leg of the trip was less interesting, being an ordinary flat 2-lane along the headwaters of the Rhone River, and so I snoozed. The surroundings got a little more interesting as we turned south towards Zermatt and followed the steep valley of a glacier-fed tributary of the Rhone the town of Tasch, where we were to transfer to the shuttle train to Zermat.

As I had noted earlier, Zermatt does not permit any internal combustion powered vehicles in the city except for emergency services construction equipment, and other rare special cases. All the vehicles in town are clunky-looking electric mini-vans and taxis and pickup trucks. Hence, the rail shuttle for the last bit of the trip. I wanted to use the toilet before I boarded the train, and so headed to the other end of the station where they were located. It took a little more time than I had expected, and I was rushing back to our tour group, when suddenly I realized that I was not carrying as many articles with me as I was when I had headed to the toilet. My camera! I'd left it in the stall. Everyone else was on the far side of the turnstiles except for Jenny, who was anxiously waiting for me. I yelled to Jan that I was going back for my camera, and would catch the next shuttle. They ran at 15 minute intervals. I hot-footed it back to the toilet, and rushed in to find some fellow with my camera in his hand. He smiled and said, "I think this must be yours.", I thanked him profusely, and ran back to the platform. The rest of the group was gone, of course. But I wasn't worried. There was only one stop on the shuttle train. Jenny and I went through the turnstiles and caught the next train. We took our seats in an empty car that was half for passengers and half for freight. I'll let Jenny tell the rest.

A couple of minutes later, a heavy compact utility cart was loaded onto our car--only it didn't quite get on.  It was being pushed by a trucklet, the size of a large lawn mower or a small Kubota landscape vehicle, which had to stay on the platform to maneuver the box (on a pivoting hitch) through the train door.  Apparently it only fits if you get the angle just right.  Aboard the pusher, and then hauling at the wheeled trunk, was someone who looked like a diligent young rookie, who must have been on a very strict schedule according to the ever-accurate clocks, and hoping that everything would go perfectly.  From inside, we could see that he was nearly in tears.  While you watched our cameras & stuff, I dashed forward to get out through an unobstructed door, ran around and back on the platform, and got behind the stuck box.  The youngster was whimpering, "Why does this only happen when I'm alone?" as we adjusted and shoved.  There wasn't any strong cussing, and none of the casual, loud, habitual complaining/blaming tone that would be normal in Italy, but a world of tension in his voice.  Mustering all the good cheer of being in good health in a beautiful place, I applied Vermont vehicle persuasion physics and attempted to calm him.  What with the immaculate floors of the platform and train car, which were nearly flush, the well-oiled casters bearing a balanced load, it only took a little extra boost on my end to get it to glide on straight, and there were still several minutes before departure.  I hope that your backtracking to the WC, which placed us in the right spot at the necessary moment, ultimately saved one guy from being raked over the coals by his perfectionist Swiss superiors.

That camera was to be the first of several bread crumbs I was to leave behind me during the trip, that I later recovered in one fashion or other. It became a standing joke amongst our party until at one point when Jan held up a lost item that someone else claimed, it was remarked that for once I wasn't the one that had misplaced it. The train departed (of course) on schedule to the dot, and 10 minutes later we arrived in Zermatt, to be greeted by Jan.