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Europe 2024: Use your imagination
posted : Saturday, January 25, 2025
Day 7 and we are on the move again.
Luzern is not too far away on the Luzern-Interlaken Express, so plan was to get there after noon and apparently tickets weren’t super hot even though it’s a scenic train again. So we had a morning to squeeze in another small town in the vicinity. Checked out, and caught a bus from Interlaken Ost to Iseltwald! Made famous by Crash Landing on You too. But alas luck ran out and the mist was pretty bad even as we stepped out from the hotel to the platform.  Breakfast with the misty platform in the background  Two days ago you can see the mountains behind this building The mist outside during our bus ride  The famous pier at Iseltwald The dreamy lake view…hidden behind the mist  I guess dreamy is charming too  Mountains where are you  See what I mean. And it helps that there aren’t too many tourists this morning  Hey birdie Decided that it’s not worth making a trip to attractions in the town so we headed back to Interlaken instead, hoping to catch an earlier train to Luzern. Which almost worked out in our favor but we ended up missing a connecting train. And this is the second out of three rides that was disrupted due to train track damages - Luzern-Interlaken Express, as the name implies, was supposed to be a train in between the two towns. But a section of track was damaged which meant a shuttle bus was provided instead from Interlaken Ost to Meiringen, and the train will start from there instead. And it was this shuttle bus that maybe was running late a bit? But we missed the train departing from Meiringen and had to wait for an hour for the next train, which we just camped at the platform and had lunch. Oh and on the way to Meiringen the skies have cleared up giving way to glorious blue skies and clear views from Lake Brienz, which we caught a glimpse of as the bus passed by Iseltwald.  Skies starting to clear up  Most trains have this restaurant car  See the villages and mountains on the other side of Lake Brienz?  A short stop at Brienz before heading towards Meiringen, which may or may not have costed us the connection  On the bus  Platform at Meiringen. All sunny and nomsight of our train so next one it is, thankfully it’s once every hour  Lunch, the burrito wrap was not to my liking at all though Anyway this time round we didn’t reserve seats, on the account that the trains are frequent enough and seats are readily available during off season. Supposed to pass by five lakes along the way, some on the left and some on the right, so we picked a cabin with less passengers that can give us the flexibility to switch sides if needed. Only thing that tripped us up is the temperamental weather - half an hour into the ride and after a tunnel we emerged out into a whole new world of cloudy skies and mist so that’s bye bye to our nice views. And towards the end I also got roped in by train conductor to be a translator for two Chinese tourists who did not bring their ID along and their tour guide didn’t even board the train with them. Conductor eventually let them off but I’ve missed the views of the last couple of lakes nearer to Luzern - but oh well I guess I’m not missing much in this weather.  On the train  We almost had the entire carriage to ourselves though before the two Chinese tourists joined us  Nice views  Then went into a tunnel and emerged into a whole new world, like wtf just happened where’s my sun  Passing by one of the lakes So arrived at Luzern! Bit of a walk to our accommodation, on which I promptly asked the receptionist if there’s a shorter route to which I’m told there’s none, but we eventually found a more palatable route on our own. What was surprising was that he asked if we would like to sign up for membership on the spot, and we ended up receiving a two tier upgrade from the base room as a result lolol.  Luzern station  Radisson Hotel this time round  Signature shot  View from room, not that we are in the room most of the time. Very spacious as a result of the upgrade lol  Across Lake Luzern  Back to the station with this arch  To the city’s icon  Chapel Bridge  Attempting to recreate some shots we learnt from XHS but this wasn’t it  Shophouses across the lake  Another look at the bridge  And found ourselves at the Old Town. It’s like most Swiss towns have one of these  Wandering along the Old Town  This looked nice so we bought for dinner later  Back at one end of the Chapel Bridge after a while  Dusk  Stopping by watch boutiques as usual but a bit turned off by Chinese sales staff hahah  Jesuitenkirche  Bridge looked stunning at night  Of course we stopped by Coop on the way back to grab dinner And fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow.
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