Tradition and change
“What a change has come over Switzerland: and in fact all Europe during this century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man in Europe who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man who had devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; he was the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goes everywhere; and Switzerland
and many other regions which were unvisited and unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago are in our days a buzzing hive of restless strangers every summer.” (Mark Twain, A tramp abroad, 1880)
The station of the Brienz Rothorm Bahn in Brienz
When Mark Twain visited Switzerland in 1880 it already was a popular destination for tourists. In particular for rich American, British and German visitors it was part of the grand tour to visit the attractions of Europe. The early arrival of tourists led to the construction of infrastructure for their service. Many of the grand hotels and mountain railroads built in this time are still operating. The Vitnau Rigi railway was the first cog wheel mountain railway in Europe. On May 21st, 1871, his birthday, the chief engineer responsible for its construction (and of the construction of many other cog railroads) Niklaus Riggenbach drove the first train up the mountain himself. Less than 10 years later Mark Twain observed the train while hiking up the mountain:
In busy times the trains ride in viewing distance
The photo illustrates the grade of the incline
Number 1, the oldest engine from 1892 takes a break at an intermediate stop to take water
“We got under way about the turn of noon and pulled out for the summit again with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had gone about two hundred yards and stopped to rest I glanced to the left while I was lighting my pipe, and in the distance detected a long worm of black smoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was the locomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once to gaze for we had never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out the train. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up a sharp slant like the roof of a house - but there it was and it was doing that very miracle.”
The train high above the lake
Mark Twain didn’t have to travel oversees to see a working cog railway: the world’s first cog railway was built in his home country, in the state of New Hampshire, in 1868. The Mount Washington cog railway is still operating today and although most of the trains today are diesel operated, all the steam engines from the beginning of the operation still exist.
The mountains dwarf the train
In Switzerland electrical power is easily accessible due to the many steep watercourses. With the development of electric locomotives the mountain railroads were quickly electrified. The Vitznau-Rigi Railway was electrified in 1907. It looks like they did not completely trust their electrical equipment and a couple of steam engines are still in service today. The problem with the electric railways was that the masses of snow tended to hamper or even destroy the cables for power supply. At the Furka Pass railway, the electric cables and masts and even a bridge were completely removed in winter to avoid damage. The line across the Furka pass was later replaced by a tunnel but the original line was rebuilt by railway buffs and operates in summer with the original steam engines, some of which were bought as scrap in far away Vietnam, where they had ended up after they were obsolete in Switzerland due to electrification.
Engine number 6 built in 1933
However there is always the odd one out. The Brienz Rothorn Bahn never replaced their steam engines. The line was opened in 1892 and brings tourists from the station at the lake shore in Brienz at 566 m to the summit of the Rothorn Kulm at 2244 m. As such, it is the forth highest railway in Switzerland. In 1968 the end of the railway had almost come when a general assembly decided the closure and replacement by a cable car. However, protests eventually saved the line. Most of the original steam engines, some built as early as 1891, are still in operation. In the 1970ies the BRB bought some Diesel engines. The old steam engines were worn out and there was no company able or willing to built new ones. However, after 1992, the BRB was able to have four brand new steam engines built from SLM, the traditional swiss company for the construction of railroad material.
The station and steamer terminal in Brienz
The lakeside promenade in Brienz
In 2000 friends had hired a vacation apartment in Brienz and we happily agreed to join in. With the brilliant public transport infrastructure in Switzerland it was no question how to get there. With a baby of 9 month, buggy and backpacks we took the night-train and after a single stop-over in Interlaken arrived at the station of Brienz, from where it was a short walk to the apartment. All the major attractions in the surroundings were easily reachable by train or by boat. While we covered 1000 km in ten hours on the overnight train, Mark Twain in his time needed the same time to cover the distance of 68 km from Lucerne over the Brünig pass to Interlaken by horse carriage.
The old wooden chalets of Brienz
“We drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of its bewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous hoo-hooing of its cuckoo clocks and had not entirely recovered our spirits when we rattled across a bridge over the rushing blue river and entered the pretty town of Interlaken. It was just about sunset and we had made the trip from Lucerne in ten hours.”
From our apartment the departure of the steam train and the first part of its climb up the mountain side was visible. For hefty 61 CHF per person one-way we took the train for the 7.6 km, 1 hour ride up to Rothorn Kulm, the terminus on the top of the mountain. On the old coal fired engines a fireman has to shovel 300 kg of coal into the firebox to help the train up the incline. The modern engines are oil fired and do not need a fireman. Since this is more economic most of the trains are powered by the modern engines. On the way are three loops where descending trains can pass.
Number 6 has reached the summit. Next to it a train with a diesel engine
Trains with modern steam engines at the summit
At the summit is a hotel. The view is extraordinary. Below at the end of the lake of Brienz the town of Interlaken can be seen and on the horizon the peaks of Jungfrau (4158 m), Eiger (3970 m) and Mönch (4107 m). Just below the summit a group of capricorns is playing in the snow. These animals were almost hunted to extinction but have recovered in the region of the Rothorn and now form a group of 170.
Capricorns in a snow field beneath the summit
With the baby in the backpack we hike back down. It is a beautiful day but surprisingly few people walk the pleasant, uncomplicated track of a couple of hours back down into Brienz.
Close to the summit
View over the lake
In many countries the arrival of tourists has completely changed the appearance of towns, coasts and sometimes even the countryside. This also happened in some ski-resorts in Switzerland. However, most of the traditional tourist destinatons have integrated tourism to such an extent that it seems to belong there. Hotels are often tastefully old fashioned and new buildings have been adapted to the local traditional architecture. The huge concrete apartment block blocks which have disfigured most of the beaches in Europe are uncommon. The hefty prices help to keep the more unpleasant crowds away.
The Giessbach falls
Across the lake from Brienz are the Giessbachfälle, a waterfall which nowadays is one of the favorite of the internet travel blog and influencer crowd. In 14 cascades the water of the Giessbach falls down 500 m into the Brienzersee. Already in 1873 the falls were such a popular destination that a grand hotel was built at the foot of the falls. However, in 1979, the hotel had to close after a long period of decline. Plans of investors foresaw the demolition of the derelict building and its replacement by a modern concrete structure. Fortunately protests prevented these plans and the old hotel was restored to its old glory.
The funicular climbing up to the grand hotel Giessbach
If visitors and guests do not want or are not able to walk up to the hotel they can take a cable car which is one of the world’s oldest. The Giessbachbahn was opened in 1879 and is the oldest still operating funicular in Switzerland. Only four others in Budapest, Istanbul, Scarborough and Lyon are older than the Giessbachbahn. Originally the propulsion was by gravity: the downhill car was filled with water and pulled the uphill car down. Later it was rebuilt to be operated electrically.
From the waterfalls there is an easy trail along the lake shore to Iseltwald, a village on a peninsula in the lake. Strangely enough I did not take any pictures in this picturesque village. A castle marks the tip of the peninsula. In 2000, many of the big beautiful wooden chalet farm houses of Iseltwald looked abandoned and empty. According to google streetview, this has completely changed. The little town now is a popular day trip destination from Interlaken. From Iseltwald the steamer brings us back to Brienz.
The alternative route is high up along the flank of the mountains. On the way I pass the Hinterburgseeli, another favorite of the internet crowd, a secluded mountain lake surrounded by towering peaks. Along the whole hike the the turquoise waters of the lake of Brienz shine through the trees of the forest.
The Hinterburgseeli
“The mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight up out of the lake and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow clad mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and repulsive but clothed in green and restful and pleasant to the eye. And they were so almost straight-up-and-down sometimes that one could not imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface yet there are paths, and the swiss people go up and down them every day.” (Mark Twain, a tramp abroad)
In the gorge of the Aare
East of Brienz the river Aare has forced a passage through a chasm of about 2 km long and at its narrowest only 1 m wide. In 1889 a walkway was opened along the gorge. Most of the path is a wooden construction on a metal frame cantilevered out from the wall of the gorge, with short stretches in tunnels. It resembles very much the camino del rey in Andalucia. As is typical for Switzerland, the Aare gorge can be reached by train. The Meiringen – Innertkirchen Railway has stops at both ends of the ravine. The nearby Reichenbach waterfalls acquired literary fame because they form the setting of the death of Sherlock Holmes and his archenemy Professor Moriarty in Sir Conan Doyles 1893 short story "The Adventure of the Final Problem".
The narrowest point of the gorge
From Interlaken, in between the western end of lake Brienz and the eastern end of lake Thun, trains depart up into the marvelous heights of the mountains of the Jungfrau area. The valley close to Lauterbrunnen looks like Yosemite Valley moved into Switzerland. Cascades falls down the vertical cliffs on both sides. It is a miracle that the mountains sides do not drop down on the tiny houses of the villages below.
Yosemite in Switzerland
“A constant marvel with us as we sped along the bases of the steep mountains on this journey was not that avalanches occur but that they are not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocks and landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslip occurred three quarters of a century ago on the route from Arth to Brunnen, which was a formidable thing. A mass of
conglomerate two miles long, a thousand feet broad and a hundred feet thick broke away from a cliff three thousand feet high and hurled itself into the valley below burying four villages and five hundred people as in a grave.” (Mark Twain, a tramp abroad)
The station of Lauterbrunnen
The trains up to the Jungfraujoch
Sometimes a historic train is used
From Lauterbrunnen even the top of Jungfrau at 4158 meters can be reached by train. An intermediate stop allows a view from the inside of the glacier on the north face of the mountain. As long as the glacier still exists. The terminus of the railway at Jungfraujoch allows a view of the Aletsch Glacier. With a length of 23 km and a thickness of up to 1000 m this is the largest glacier in the Alps. But like most others it is retreating. Since 1980 is has lost 1.3 km of length, since 1870 as much as 3.2 km and 300 m of thickness. The entire glaciated area was declared a UNESCO world heritage site. But as long as global warming will not be stopped the decrease of the glacier will continue.
View from the Jungfraujoch across the Aletsch glacier
Another branch line climbs up to Schynige Platte, a spectacular high alpine meadow renowned for its flower garden and views of the surrounding mountains. This railway was opened in 1893 and electrified in 1914. In 7.25 km it gains a height of 1420 m. The line only operates in summer. In the upper section the overhead catenary has to be removed in winter because of the heavy snowfall. For the removal and reinstallation of the catenary the line’s only remaining steam engine dating from 1894 is used. The electric toy trains look like they did not change a lot since 1914. All the original engines of that year are still in service. Additional engines were acquired second hand to meet the increasing demand. These “new” engines were built in 1910-1912.
Schynige platte engine number 19 of 1911
Mark Twain was an enthusiastic traveler. His first travel book to Europe and the Near East “the innocents abroad” was published in 1869 and during his lifetime was his best selling work. It still is one of the best-selling travel books of all time. In 1880 Twain published another travel book about his hiking trip from northern Germany to Italy with his friend Harris (a fictional character based on his friend Joseph Twichell). While the goal of the journey was to walk most of the way, the men find themselves using other forms of transport most of the time as they traverse the continent. Twain hilariously makes fun of himself and fellow travelers as the typical American tourist knowing everything better but in reality understanding none of it. The book is richly illustrated by drawings adding to the irony of the story. Most of Mark Twain’s works are available at Gutenberg library and it is a pleasure to compare his experiences with the transformed world of today.
The mountian scenery of Schynige platte
Like ourselves Mark Twain passed through the town of Lucerne on his way to the Jungfrau area. For anybody who is interested in the history of swiss railways the brilliant Verkehrshaus der Schweiz in Lucerne is a must to visit. But the best known touristic attraction of Lucerne is the 204 m long covered wooden bridge spanning the river Reuss where it exits lake Lucerne. The bridge was built in 1365 as part of the fortifications. In the 18th century the city council paid artist Hans Wegmann and his sons to paint the triangular spaces between the rafters with scenes from the lives of St. Leger and St. Maurice, the patron saints of Lucerne and scenes from Swiss history. In August 1993 a fire destroyed the unique gabled roof and the bridge balustrades. Many of Wegmann's paintings were also destroyed though it was possible to restore thirty. Probably the fire started on the bridge due to a discarded cigarette smoldering in the timbers.
The reconstructed covered bridge of Lucerne
“We visited the two long, covered wooden bridges which span the green and brilliant Reuss just below where it goes plunging and hurrahing out of the lake. These rambling swaying backed tunnels are very attractive things with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely and inspiring water. They contain two or three hundred queer old pictures by old Swiss masters - old boss sign-painters
who flourished before the decadence of art.”
Some years earlier, in 1993, the burnt bridge
Link to the previous post:
Farmhouses and alpine meadows around Brienz
