Tirol

We drove on from Fussen into the Tirol and headed straight, as well as mountain roads afford, for Ehrwald, at the Austrian foot of the Zugspitze, the big mountain in this area, and Germany's tallest.

Approaching Ehrwald, almost like the Tetons

Ehrwald cattle drive, probably staged for tourists

Alpenglow on Gruenstein

Ditto on Zugspitze; the summit is the farthest peak left

Gruenstein again

Typical Tirolean mountain view

And a field view, hay-sheds everywhere

Koenigschlosses

From Switzerland, we crossed into western Austria, then, avoiding the toll-roads, into Germany, Fussen, and the Koenig Schlosses, the castles of mad King Ludwig, who was, certainly, mad, but also Wagner's royal friend and benefactor; for a while.... We had visited them in 1989, so settled for a mere drive-by shooting.

Hohenschwangau in its Alpine setting

Closer up

Closer up still

And Neuschwanstein, a mile or two away

Closer-up; Ludwig had this thing about Schwans, from

Wagner, mostly; said now to have been inspired by

Disney...

Pretty Fussen, where we also had the good luck of finding

a water pump to replace our leaking Shurflo model 2088; I

 installed it immediately

Pilatus

The other reason for visiting Luzern was Pilatus, a small (7,000 feet) peak west of town, but one of Europe's great mountain landmarks. My interest in Pilatus is four-fold: 1) view from the summits; 2) regard for Pontius Pilate, whose spirit allegedly dwelled near the summit (it was Pilate who asked, philosophically, "what is truth?," then went on to other things); 3) on Pilatus, supersitions about mountains began to fade after visits, in the 1700s, to the summit demonstrated that no one dwelled there and nothing bad came of climbing; 4) Wagner climbed Pilatus; 5) I wanted the exercise, but did not properly calculate the 5600 feet descent. 

Five-fold. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

I got back down by 4pm, had a Cailliers ice cream bar, thanks to Vicki, and we headed on past Luzern to a lay-by in extreme eastern Switzerland.

OK, I took the cog-wheel train to the saddle

at the top; it is the world's highest-angle

cog-gtrain, 48 degrees at the top; depicted a

bove is how it works

The train; note its terraced structure; had I walked up, I

would not have arrived till mid-afternoon, when everything

had clouded up

Morning view, Lake Luzern below

Lucerne below

Tomlishorn, the western-most, and, I think, highest

summit of Pilatus

Tribschen and the Wagner Museum, center

But the glorious thing about Pilatus is that, on a clear

morning, such as this, you can see, not all that far away,

the whole of the Berner Alps: here, the Finsteraarhorn,

the Schreckhorn, the Weisshorn, others we camped

below in Grindelwald

Summit schema from Esel, the eastern summit of Pilatus

And, snowy in the middle, the Monch, then the Eiger, its

north face in shadow, and then the Jungfrau; totally

exhiliarating!

Looking from the Tomlishorn to the central summit

(mostly Japanese turbuss-folk), and then the Esel; I

climbed the Esel and Tomlishorn, but skipped the

crowded middle

Looking down from the Tomlishorn, toward Luzern,

trails and a high chapel

It's all well above tree-line, but not above flower-line; the

whole trail around the summits is covered in flowers and

in flower labels

Looking down toward the descent trail, 5600 feet...

Down the trail, looking back up toward Esel and the

central summit (hotel, restaurants, gift shoppes, etc.)

And, click to enlarge, a little red train about to enter the

48 percent grade

Cruise on Lake Luzern; Sort of...

Our most interesting drive, so far...

Switzerland consists very largely of mountains and lakes,

and occasionally they have to build roads out over the

lakes in order to accommodate the mountains, as above

Some repair was needed on this stretch, so the road was

detoured, on pontoons, well out into the lake, for a quarter-

mile or more

Like so

Vicki did not freak-out; well, only a little...but then we had

to do it on the way back, too

Richard Wagner Museum Luzern

One of the reasons we visited Luzern was the Wagner museum, in Tribschen, on the lake, now a city park area. Wagner spent most of his many years in exile from Germany in Switzerland, and 1866-72 in Tribschen. The house he lived in is now the museum, and it has many important artifacts.

Wagner museum, Tribschen; on the steps

the Siegfried Idyll was first performed

Luzern had a copy of the face death-mask; but the real

right-hand cast

Nietzche's death mask; he visited Wagner

some 23 times in Tribschen; then went on

to other things; should they ever make a

movie of Nietzsche's life, I nominate Sam

Elliot to play the role of The Philosopher

Wagner's Erard piano; if you have seen the epic movie

Wagner (Richard Burton's last film), you will appreciate

that this is the piano depicted in many scenes, as the

composer moves from country to country in his exile years

Renoir's charcoal study for his several

Wagner portraits (the Tribschen museum

also has the very famous Beckmann

painting of Wagner, Cosima, Liszt, et al.,

but the lighting had too much glare)

One of the earliest pix of The Master, in all

his megalomaniacal finery, seated in

This, his easy chair; somehow I can't imagine

the man long in an easy chair...

The second floor of the museum used to be the standard

collection of 19th century musical instruments; but now

it is temporary Wagner exhibits, this one, really

interesting for me, based on a recent book by two Swiss

music historians about Wagner's various walks and

scrambles amongst the Swiss Alps (I wonder if he

ever ran into Whymper) and how they bear on his

work, especially the Ring cycle; the large 1850s wall

map depicts his various hikes...

The Master's walking hat (alas, not a Tilley)

View of the house from lakeside

Luzern

We spent the better part of Sunday in Luzern, a city we have visited once or twice before.

Lakefront downtown

Arch

The very famous bridge and water tower

The bridge used to be decorated with dozens of 17th or

18th century Renaissance-style paintings, depicting the

city's history; beheading was a favorite theme...

But in 1993, they had a fire, and many were destroyed

Including this one

We had planned on visiting the Rosengart Collection

Our strategy in visiting less well-known museums,

particularly those featuring 20th century work, is to visit

the gift store first, check out the post-cards, and then

decide whether there was anything we had to see...

especially @ $17 per person

The Rosengart Collection lost out

So we visited the bahnhof shopping mall, the culture center,

and

Just sat in the park by the lake

And admired the view