Swiss'land : A Travelogue '03

Lucerne, Switzerland

Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world but in Switzerland too, Lucerne is perhaps the best with a huge lake kissing the feet of mountains in an otherwise flatter city. One-hour drive from Zurich, Lucerne is a town with a local population not more than 78,000 ! But it’s frequented throughout the year by tourists from allover the world. Tourists love its calm and pure atmosphere; a walk on the wooden bridge with colourful flowers hanging on one of its sides and a beautiful boat ride in the lovely Lucerne Lake.

On our first evening there, Urvashi and I took up a boat ride on the lake for two hours. Though the cabin was warm and air-conditioned, we sat out on the deck in that cold, chilling dusk to soak-in the beauty of the lake and the mountains. I don’t know why, but somehow we assumed that after two hours, the same boat would bring us back to Lucerne. This assumption, however, was a grave mistake – it was actually a ferry taking people from Lucerne to various other hamlets! We were supposed to get down at one of these places and board another boat in reverse direction to reach Lucerne. The mistake caused me to reach late for the official dinner hoisted for the Surgeons sponsored by my Company.

But as a trade-off, as we got down at a place to take a ferry back, we got a closer look of this small and very silent hamlet – such silence one can only imagine in India when the place is under curfew! For about an hour or so, we enjoyed the view of the nice little houses and the shops with their roofs sloped, bunch of flowers hanging from cute small windows, the effect was like that of some fairyland- but this one really existed and was only an hour away from Lucerne both by road as well as boat.

From Lucerne station a train leads to Engel burg, from where, one can ascend to the snow-capped Mt. Titlis. A cable car lifts people from Engel burg to Mt. Titlis, which is at a height of appox 3500 meters - almost half of that of Mt. Everest! While on the train, one passes through a beautiful countryside with lovely green manicured grasslands. It’s a great sight to watch well-fed cows feasting on the green, while tinkering the neatly tied bells around their neck. You wonder what the people here would have done to be born on such a scenic place – away from a world of chaos, pollution and stress!

I had been to Mt. Titlis about three years ago, and as this time, I was to accompany the surgeons to visit my Company’s nearby Heart-Valve plant at Horw, Urvashi went to Titlis alone.

Another train from Lucerne leads you to Interlaken, a hot favorite among Bollywood Producers. In fact it is not unusual to find things written in ‘Hindi’ at few places in the major tourist spots in Switzerland – thanks to Bollywood and the Indian ‘honeymooning’ couples. The journey to Interlaken is around two hours, and gives an amazing view of some of the fabulous lakes – the colour of of these appear in some superior pastel shade of green.

On our trip to Interlaken, two Bangladeshi Surgeons, who were very friendly throughout, joined us. We took a Tonga ride in Interlaken to see the place and relished every part of it as we passed by beautiful houses, church and shops in this scenic town. The major attraction in Interlaken is Para-Jumping and Para-Gliding, that’s why Urvashi had planned this visit in the first place. Unfortunately, as we didn’t have a prior booking for these events, she couldn’t fulfill her long time desire of Para-jumping, and was really put-off.