Volume 4: Pete in Europe Part 8. A young balding mans journey through 10 countries and back
Day 18 – Hopfgarten to Lucerne
We spent a part of the day as fugitives on the run from the Austrian police. The night before Trev and Dave in an alcohol inspired decision thought two old traditional flags hanging in Hopfgarten looked so pretty on their way back from the Silver Bullet that they decided they would get a better look at them by removing them from their respective flag poles. Trev and Dave had come across as two fine upstanding respectable lads who would never get into trouble; mainly because they’re girlfriend/wife would have kicked they’re ass or denied them sex for the rest of the tour. So it came as a surprise as word went round the bus that Trev and Dave had committed the crime. Apparently some local had heard English voices laughing and telling each other to ‘Sssshhh’ in vicinity of the crime scene. There was another Contiki tour in Hopfgarten at the time but they denied all knowledge of the crime, so it was our bus that had all the focus on it from the Austrian authorities. You never want to commit a crime in a foreign country, especially one that sided with the Nazis, and I half expected our bus being caught up in a big shoot out as we tried to cross the border into Switzerland, with Joel accelerating through the border guard under a hail of bullets. As good a story as that would’ve have been, it shall remain untold as the boys admitted to Natasha what they had done and she called the appropriate people to let them know they would find one of the flags in a closet in either Trev or Dave’s room, while they’d need a sniffer dog to find the other one as the boys had forgotten where they’d placed it.
As for me, I not only hit the wall but slammed into it that morning. The night before I had been working on the equation 4b + 9vr, where b = 500ml beer and vr = vodka and redbull. The conclusion of my research is that 4b + 9vr = sg, where sg = sick guts. The thought of being the 1st person to hurl on the bus was the only thing that saved me from tasting my breakfast for a 2nd time that morning.
Our first stop for the morning was at the Swarovski Crystal “Muesuem”. I use the quotes as most museums actually teach you something. The only thing this place taught us is what would happen if we dropped bad acid. Inside it included a display of a crystal zebra riding a pink stiletto shoe on the ocean. To convince me that a drug free person came up with that would simply be impossible. If you needed anymore proof of the drug fuelled creativeness of the “museum” you only need to go to a black room located towards the end of the tour, I call the trip out room, where you sit in the dark and listen to voices say stuff like “peace” while you look at obscure moving images on the wall. Many Europeans over the years have had visions from god; in this case it was an acid induced vision that had told some bloke to build a giant green head out of a hill and fill it with what can only be described as crystal related weird shit and call it a museum.
Lunch today was spent in the small independent state of Liechtenstein. A country I think that was only created by tour companies so they could add another country to their itineraries to make them sound more impressive without having to detour on their way to Switzerland. Liechtenstein measures just 25km from north to south, averages about 6km from west to east, and only takes up 4 pages in the Lonely Planets “Europe on a shoestring”. Liechtenstein shares many things with Switzerland, namely the Swiss Franc and the fact you need a small wheelbarrow of them if you’d like to purchase anything (I believe lunch cost about 6 francs for a handful of fries and a coke). The people of Liechtenstein are also a bright people. They once held a referendum to grant the Prince full veto power to any law he didn’t like. The referendum passed with over 60% approval. Myself, if I had have been living in Liechtenstein at the time, I would have called for a referendum calling for the Prince to kiss my ass.
After lunch, it was off to Switzerland where we reached the foot of Mt Pilatus at around 4pm. We were to spend the next 2 nights at the top of the mountain at Europe’s highest hotel. Unfortunately the clouds ruined any chance of enjoying the view on the way to the top of the mountain in our gondoliers. Once at the top of the mountain we were surprised to discover snow, which I don’t know why because I had three layers of clothing on and I was still in danger of having one of my nipples getting frozen and potentially snapped off when I took my t-shirt off.
Tonight’s winner getting a chance to answer the question “Does Pete snore?”; Aalok. Either the altitude or the fact I’d had about ten hours sleep in the last week were enough for me to call an early close to the Party Capital at 11pm.Day
19 – Lucerne
It was a good nights sleep, while the dragon that is supposed to inhabit the mountain must have been well fed because he didn’t make much noise during the night.
I was looking forward to spending my first full day in Switzerland, a nation with compulsory military service which meant there were 650,000 trained civilians who know how to kill you with a cork screw and a pair of nail clippers which make up a part of the standard Swiss Army knife. Apparently, the Swiss have no interest in invading anyone, but realise they’re a target what with having so much nazi gold to defend. Needless to say, I didn’t steal any steins in Switzerland for fear of some local cutting my throat with a bottle opener.
The clouds from yesterday had cleared and we enjoyed a brilliant view of the Alps on one side and the city of Lucerne on the other. On the gondolier ride down the mountain you could hear the constant sound of cowbells, yet not see any cows. I put it down to there being no cows and it was just the Swiss tourist commission who had set up some loud speakers to put out cow sounds 24 hours a day. Either that or there’d been a massive cow slaughter and the mountain was now haunted by the sounds of those many innocent cows that gave their life that day so that the locals could enjoy a Big Mac.
Lucerne was a quite city. A city where you could understand why they would attempt a spectacular engineering feat of putting a hotel on top of a mountain, making it the highest in Europe, simply because there is nothing else to do. To give you an idea of how secluded the hotel is and the effort that would have been required to build a hotel in such a remote spot, the only way to access it is via the gondoliers or a via a train that rides tracks set on a 48° gradient.
Seeing the sights of Lucerne is something you want to plan well, as it will take at least 45 minutes to see everything. After seeing the Lion Monument (a nice bit of handy work that had been cut out of natural rock in 1820 in dedication of the Swiss troops that died in the French revolution) with the rest of the group, and as we were still in a German speaking country, and I now associated German-speaking countries with beer, I spent the day with Todd B. We took in a short walk that included the Kabellbrücke and Spreuerbrücke wooden bridges. Much like it is illegal to take a picture in Florence that doesn’t include il Duomo, it is also local law in Lucerne making it compulsory to take a picture of the Kabellbrücke whenever you take a picture of Lucerne (note: probably not true, but again, I challenge you to find a website of Lucerne that doesn’t include the Kabellbrücke bridge). Most city’s would’ve knocked down such wooden bridges and replaced them with concrete bridges with little personality, but thankfully Lucerne hadn’t, meaning it you could still fill in a solid 45 minutes (including lunch) seeing the sites of Lucerne. From those testaments to mans strength over trees and his ability to shape them into practical things like bridges and shoe horns, we took a walk along the old town fortress wall.
From there, we took five minutes to appreciate the view of the Alps, and then realised there was nothing left to do but sample the local ales. We enjoyed four ales from four different establishments, with the highlight being drinking a Dutch beer in an Irish Pub while in Switzerland. It was a privilege we paid 9 Francs for. The lowlight, not knowing the German for the word “Shandy” and accidentally ordering one late in the day. What surprised me most was the number of Asians working in stores in Lucerne, it made me shed a tear as it was like being back home again. After enjoying the local product on land, we got the joy of a further three beers on water as we partook in a lovely cruise on Lake Lucerne spent with everyone else from the tour. After we got off the cruise we caught the train up the mountain which turned out to be a lot of fun as everyone had consumed a “few bottles of personality” on the cruise. Well, it was fun for everyone but AJ as she had a thing about heights, not a “thing” as in “I have a thing for that hot chick over there at the bar” but a “thing” as in loathing.
That night the hotel reception was turned into a nightclub (if you can call hanging three or four coloured lights from the roof and playing the latest music from the 80’s a nightclub) where we got two free drinks. That combined with the seven beers, the altitude, and the spliff we shared with a local (somehow taking us even higher on the highest hotel in Europe) and it was safe to say I’d reached my happy place. While that was all happening Brad H was trying to go offshore with some 40+-year-old woman wearing a tartan skirt. I don’t know how old she was, but I’m pretty sure she was so old she could remember working as a teller during WWII depositing nazi blood money into Swiss bank accounts.
The party started to die around 1am, at which time I chose to go to bed.
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