Sunday Morning, Coming Up

Sunday morning, I woke up early, and scrambled to the window like a kid on Christmas morning scrambles to the top of the stairs to see the tree and the presents below. Yes, there it was – Mt. Pilatus lit up in a red fire indicating sunrise. The mountain looked surreal.

In 1984, I was a junior at American University (skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t need my trip down memory lane). The second semester, I was lucky enough to be involved in the first-ever internship program for Americans to work for a British Member of Parliament. My MP was Geoff Lawler, a Tory in a hard-left Labour seat, interested in American-style politics like constituent service, frequent press releases, op-eds, and trips actually back to the district. Geoff and I still keep in touch, and it was one of the greatest experiences a political junkie could have, roaming the halls of Parliament, listening to Mrs. Thatcher and Neil Kinnock (Labour’s nice, yet ineffectual leader) spar in the House of Commons.

(So many colleges copied AU’s great idea that within a few years Americans were banned from interning in Parliament, as Yanks were overrunning the place!)

Anyhow, I bought a two-way train ticket – not a Eurrail pass (those were too expensive) that let me travel someplace and return to London via a different route, as long as I did not leave roundtrip route. So, I went to Paris, Nice, Monaco, Pisa (for an afternoon), Rome, Florence, Venice (I had to buy a separate ticket from Milan to Venice), Lucerne, Bruges, and back to London. As much as I loved the cities, I felt that with two nights in Lucerne I had short-changed Switzerland. It was definitely a country I wanted to visit again and see more of.

Mrs. Iron Tourist had responded unenthusiastically every time I brought up including Switzerland on one of our trips. If you know Carol, you know she has, um, strong opinions on things and rarely ends up doing something she does not want to do. Every decade or so, I end up doing something she does not want me to (okay, so having a motorcycle and living in NoVA did turn out to be a bad idea), and this time I went ahead and included Switzerland in the itinerary.

After breakfast, we packed up and drove into town to the Railway Station, which is right on the edge of Lake Luzern (or Lucerne – spelling in this post may vary). We caught the 9:50 boat in the nick of time, and leisurely took the 90 minute steamer ride to many stops on Lake Lucerne, finally getting off at Alpnachstad. The 90 minutes on the boat ride passed quickly – we had beautiful views of all the towns, the cliffs, and the mountains surrounding the lake.

Next was the cog railroad trip up to the top of Pilatus – some 7,000 feet up. A rocky crag, there was snow in early June when I was there in 1984, but this August, there was no snow – although we could snow off on the taller Alps. The ride up was incredible – it is the steepest cog railway in the world, and was built back in 1889. At some points the railway climbed up grades steeper than 45 degrees. Not to be heartless, but everyone who rides it hopes that tomorrow is the day a railway car slips and plunges back down the track to certain death, instead of today. Since you are reading this post, clearly the cog train made it to the top safely, and we were spared a gruesome death plunging down a steep mountain cliff – not that I thought about that possibility.

(Btw, you see this stuff built back then -- and wonder, first, how did they get the crazy idea to do it, and second, how in the world DID they do it?  Crazy stuff, man.)

At the top, it was cool, but not overly cold. I had hiking shorts on, and my legs were not cold. We immediately climbed up the peak – with incredible views to Jungfrau, Eiger, Monch, and many other Swiss Alps to the South. To the North lay Lucerne and the many lakes of the region. We did the ubiquitous swap cameras with strangers so all of us could have pictures of our entire family on the mountain. (Side note: as with Prague and Vienna, there were not many Americans here – but more than in Neustift!).

After climbing to the top (well, one of several tops), we got lunch from the cafeteria (good, overpriced food) and ate outside so we could enjoy the spectacular views. The sky turned gray, but no rain came. Most people ate inside, but they obviously aren’t Iron Tourists. They undoubtedly laughed at us for eating outside – but how often do you get to dine out with views of the Alps all around. One sign referred to Pilatus as being part of the pre-Alps, which is a new phrase for me. It clearly marks the start of the Alps in that part of Switzerland – everything to the north is relatively flat – or rolling hills, while to the south are many mountains taller than Pilatus.

After lunch, we walked the path with the caves of Pilatus, and then walked out to trail to the echo point. I tried a relatively weak “echo” and heard it, but a German tourist came along and bellowed – giving us quite the echo. So, we did some more loud noises. Finally Julia and Torie did a Gator Grunt (MVP summer swim team shout-out!), hearing it echo off the far mountain walls. Then, all five did the grunt (Mr. & Mrs. Iron Tourist also serve as Mr. & Mrs. Team Rep).

Our trip down the mountain was in the opposite direction – we took the cable car down. From a distance, the cable car looked scary, traveling 2,400 feet down in just five minutes, above two steep and rocky canyons. At the end of the cable car -- 4,469 feet up at Frakmuntegg, we got out and the girls did summer tobogganing down a run on the mountain. It was very relaxing there – I enjoyed a beer at the hut as we waited for the girls to rejoin us.

It was from this point in 1984 on my first day in Luzern that I hopped off the gondola, meaning to go for a short walk – which turned into a long jaunt through the hills outside Lucerne, coming across a wander hutte and thoroughly enjoying myself before finding myself miles from Lucerne. I hitchhiked the many miles back into town, back when I hitchhiked at the drop of a thumb.

(As an aside, my longest hitch-hiking trips were from London to Edinburgh and then from Glasgow back to London. I used to hitchhike to soccer and track practice regularly before getting my license – it was a different world back then. Recently, POS teammate Jim Hobart and I were driving into the Rockies prior to some Denver focus group work, and I picked up a hitchhiker. . .people react as though I’m lucky to be alive when I mention that. Not every hitchhiker even these days is a crazed prison escapee – that’s only in the movies, oh, and near prisons!)

It was late afternoon by the time we took the 25 minute gondola ride down to the town of Kriens, which was a 15 minute bus ride from where we parked at the Lucerne train station. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day – which included a steamer boat ride, a cog railway, a cable car, a gondola ride, and a bus ride. And the most harrowing part of our journey for the day was still to come.

The parking at the train station was great. The Swiss know how to do parking – the garages are clearly labeled, and from a block away they tell you how many spots are available. Leaving Lucerne, we headed to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, on a road that turned out to be the Scary Road of Death from Hell.

First, some guy with Zurich plates felt he had to show off, by using his Mercedes to cut within three or four inches when passing on the inside. That was a scary moment, but only a foreshadowing. And, btw, that was the closest anyone has ever come intentionally when passing. I thought about giving chase, dramatically forcing him to pull over, and then punching him like in the movies, but I decided not to work that hard. Plus, the guy was clearly a jerk and might not take kindly to my plan.

Anyhow, it was the connection from Valley to Valley that was shaky. If you ever go to Lauterbrunnen from Lucerne, go via Omaha, because the way I went was white-knuckled. Twice busses steamed around tight mountain corners – once forcing me off the road onto a small driveway. The GPS was funny – we did so many circles to reach the bottom of the steep descent that the route looked like a plate of spaghetti. Apparently, it is only 36 miles between Lucerne and Lauterbrunnen, but the drive took the 70 minutes predicted by the GPS.

And then, much to the delight of my stick-shift challenged eldest daughter, I virtually burned out the clutch trying to get to the hotel parking lot, on a steep hill with tight corners slightly above the town Lauterbrunnen. Not sure of where I was going, I stopped on the steepest part of the hill. Dumb move. I think that today, three days later, people in the Valley can still smell the clutch burning.

The girls and I walked through town over to Staubbach Falls. It is amazing – like a dream as the water plunges gracefully over the high cliffs, bouncing off the walls below and plunging again. It’s like it is moving in slow motion – I’ve never seen a waterfall like it.

We climbed up Staubbach Hill, which leads to a long underground tunnel (which also allows for an excellent echo, because at one end is the rock face of the cliffs, and a small hole to the left, allowing stairs to be climbed. The path leads behind the falls – which as we neared it, the rain started (not to stop for more than 24 hours – although it was one and off rain).

As we were going back down from the falls, I got out from under one of the overhead ledges of rock, and somehow got just dumped on by the falls/rain. It was as though someone dumped a large bucket on my head. I dared not move, because I didn’t want to slip on the uneven rock steps in my haste. That would risk adding injury to insult. The girls, as they did often this trip, laughed at me. Walking back through town, we all get pretty wet from the rain, but since I got a pre-soaking on Staubbach Hill, it didn’t really matter much.

(They laughed at me for my attempts to speak the little amount of German that I remembered from the three years I took in the Sparta publlc schools. They laughed at my ability to lose concentration when driving in low gear – I stalled out more in the days we’ve had the car than in the six years I’ve had the stick shift at home. They laughed at me for a series of verbal gaffes one day at lunch – dealing with my mess ups of Columbus, Columbus Day, Ohio, October, and the capital of Ohio. Well, if you hear them laughing in ten years, it’s probably because they thought of that lunch at the Oberland Restaurant outside in Lautterbrunnen.  If your kids are not yet teenagers, don't worry, they'll laugh at you someday.  If you have teenagers, you know what I mean.)

We had our usual 8pm dinner at the hotel, albeit after I dried off and changed. I figured it was fresh mountain water, so no need to shower – I’d already received a cold shower. When Maddy asked why we were eating so late each day, the explanation was simple – it stays light quite late, allows us some relaxation time before dinner, and also gives us time for late afternoon sightseeing if we choose. Of course, the real answer comes from my dad, who was quite fond of saying, “the rich eat late, and so do we.”

We had the front garden room to ourselves for dinner – a fun time of laughing (at me for the most part) and joking around, reliving the day so far. It’s hard to believe we had been to the mountaintop and back, and then ended up in what would turn out to be the most beautiful valley in Switzerland.

(Btw, looking back at the title of this post, one of my favorite songs is "Sunday Morning Coming Down" -- but I'll take either the Johnny Cash or the Kris Kristofferson version.  Either are amazing. . .whilst the others fall short.  And, yes, I know Kristofferson wrote the song).