Mount Titlis (3/28/1982)

Sunday, March 28, 1982

I awoke at 7:15, and since it was dark I thought it was cloudy, forgetting about the change to Daylight Savings Time.

Train day pass

I caught the 8:20 train to Olten and changed to the 9:28 to Luzern, arriving at 10:10. Followed a Hasidic family onto the narrow gauge Luzern-Stans-Engelberg (LSE) train. The bright red train left at 10:30, traveling around the Vierwaldstättersee/Lake Lucerne then into the hills to Stans, working its way up a valley. In Obermatt the train hooked onto a cog rail to climb up to Engelberg, arriving at 11:40.

Luzern-Stans-Engelberg train

Luzern-Stans-Engelberg train

A sign pointing towards Titlis led to a parking lot, and I decided not to believe the sign and turned towards the Kloster Engelberg, a huge Benedictine Abbey in town, one of seemingly many Benedictine abbeys hidden in the Alps!

Kloster Engelberg/Engelberg Abbey

Klosterkirche/Abbey church

A Mass was in progress in the Abbey church. I walked back through downtown where the road seemed to be made of gravel, but it was just the dirt and gravel thrown down for the snow and ice. Returned to the parking lot and found a path beyond it leading to the Titlisbahn/Titlis Railway station.

Titlisbahn funicular

Bought a half-price round trip ticket for 16 CHF/$8 and boarded the 12:30 funicular for Gerschnialp.

Titlisbahn ticket

Apparently the funicular does not take a lunch break during ski season, and I was stuffed in the car with a hundred skiers. At Gerschnialp we switched to a large aerial cable car, into which 50 of us were stuffed. At Trubsee we changed to another aerial cable car, crossing a flat snow-covered depression, crisscrossed with cross country and downhill ski trails, to Stand. We changed cable cars once again, traveling over a glacier which had, here and there, pale green ice “waves.” There were a few ski tracks made by daring foolhardy skiers on the unpredictable surface of the glacier. The top stop was Kleintitlis/Small Titlis at 3020 m/9908’. A sign indicated this ski run was for first rate skiers only and you must stay with the trail. I followed signs to the Ice Palace, which were just large halls cut into the ice. In the last one they put a light behind the ice to give a light blue glowing effect. I returned to the main building and went up to the second floor souvenir shop with an outdoor platform facing the big Titlis mountain at 3238 m/10, 623’.

View from Kleintitlis

Titlisbahn aerial cable car

Climbed to the top floor restaurant and panorama room with a view down on the glacier. A plane flew at a level below us. Two fellows seemed to be sticking with me, and I couldn’t understand anything they were saying to each other. Only later when we joined a group of kids speaking British English, did I realize that is what the two guys were speaking. We took the cable car down to Stand, where I got off to take photos.

Lots of tiny skiers

Titlisbahn Trubsee aerial cable car

View towards Titls

View towards Trubsee

An Italian woman and her son were on the next cable car, and they were watching a daughter/sister ski down below them. Met up with the English group at Trubsee, and were joined by a girl with a pair of skis, one had the tip bent over. Back in Engelberg at 14:30 and caught the 14:43 train to Luzern, arriving at 15:45. Crossed the bridge to Schweizerhofquai, then left on Löwenstrasse, right at Löwenplatz and into the park to the Löwendenkmal/Lion Monument.

Löwendenkmal/Lion Monument in 1900
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-07222)

It is a sculpture designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen and carved in the wall of a former sandstone quarry in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. it commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution in Paris. Today it was half-covered in scaffolding. Up the hill, I went to the Gletschergarten/Glacier Garden for 4 CHF/$2.

Gletchergarten/Glacier Garden ticket

Gletchergarten/Glacier Garden guide page 1

Gletchergarten/Glacier Garden guide page 1

It seemed like a lot to pay to see a small garden with Alpine plants, but it was much more! There were a series of glacier potholes with smooth stones in them. There were grooved stones and stones with fossils. The old building was part of the complex and going in the nearest door I found myself in an old Alhambra Mirror Maze transported from some exposition in Geneva. Kind of neat! Another door took me to a museum with the first floor devoted to geological history with a time era calendar and paintings of Luzern as a tropical area and during the ice age, also fossils, skeletons, prehistoric implements, etc. The next room had giant relief model maps of ancient and present Switzerland. In the back were models of Swiss farmhouses and a biology exhibit that included fetuses. Fancy wooden stairs took you to the next floor with a model diorama of a battle in 1799, a room made to look like a farmhouse room, an exhibit of rocks and minerals, a porcelain exhibit, and a room of maps. The top floor had rooms furnished with antique furniture, and pictures and models of old Luzern. Outside you could climb the hill past a waterfall to an Alpine hut and an observation tower. I hurried back to the train station where I was to call Jan at 17:00. We agreed to meet at the Royal Ciné Theater in Bern at 18:35. I boarded the 17:08 train to Bern, which arrived 10 minutes late at 18:35, but I arrived at the theater the same time as Jan & Kirby. Bought our 9 CHF/$4.50 tickets and sat down to watch “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

Movie ticket

Jan & Kirby brought me dinner from McDonald’s, which I tried to eat inconspicuously. Surprisingly, the movie did not inspire much emotion and I might have had a tear for the forgiveness scene, but it was interestingly done.