Monday 23rd September : Weather: 14°C to 17°C: Sunny spells, no wind, no rain, cool most of teh day
Altdorf to Sisikon: 12.0k walk: 9k Altdorf to Sisikon on Swiss Path: 3k shopping around Altdorf
Ascent and Descent: Ascent 250m, Descent 250m,
Time: 7.45am to 11.45pm: Actual Walk Time 3hrs 30 mins + 1 x 30 min stop: train Sisikon back to Altdorf
Accommodation: Krebsriedgasse 1 Altdorf
Swiss Path 35k South Lake Lucerne
Swiss Path 1991 - 700 yrs Federation
Views back to Altdorf Swiss Path
Walking Tunnel on Swiss Path
Carillon of Bells near Sisikon
Coffee At William Tell’s Chapel
Today was an unexpectedly fabulous day walking 9k on the Swiss Path around the southern end of Lake Lucerne from Altdorf to Sisikon. It was built in 1991 by connecting a series of ancient walkways and new paths to commemorate 700 years since the establishment of the Swiss Confederation in 1291.
We’re awake at 6.30m to have a cup of tea with fresh cow’s milk, Then breakfast of meusli and yoghurt for Ian, while I have pan fried bread on the induction hot plate. We’re looking for a place to hike today as rain was forecast after lunch so we decide to postpone a trip up on the cable car to Eggberge, already in the misty clouds. We found a walk beside Lake Urnersee, an arm of Lake Lucerne, but don’t know much about it except that it’s lower in altitude and we’d be back in Altdorf before the anticipated 10mm of rain at 2pm.
We leave our farmstay at 7.45am. It’s 14°C and cold and grey with looming rain clouds as we walk 2k to Fluelen to start the lake walk. As we get near the Lake, my Garmin watch notifies me we are near a Great Trail. What Great Trail?. Further on, we see a large sign with a map describing the Swiss Path and then realise it’s also on Swiss Toppo as a yellow track, not the normal hiking trail marked in red. It’s quite a famous path that we weren’t aware of, marking the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation, formed in 1291.
It unexpectedly is a wonderful path, sometimes following obviously ancient walkways, then a bike way, then the old road, and sometimes on a footpath beside the new motorway as it passes through tunnels imbedded in high cliffs. The views back to Altdorf, up to Brunnen and across the lake to the Alps are amazing. After two hours, we come to the the biggest glockenspiel in Switzerland - a tower of 38 bells that can play 20 melodies. Every hour for up to 10 minutes past the hour, ta recording plays melodies by the bells when you press a red button and we are there at 10.09am, just in time to hear the bells play.
A few minutes further on we're at the chapel at Tellsplatte, 3 kilometers south of Sisikon. According to legend, it was this particular spot where William Tell jumped out of the boat from the Habsburg Bailiff Gessler and fled to Küssnacht. This little chapel along the lake is covered in the most beautiful murals depicting significant events in the life of local hero William Tell. It's the perfect place for coffee while sitting on the chapel steps.
There’s no sign of rain yet, so we linger a while enjoying the view. A group of 4 people rush past, and we see they're in a hurry to catch the ferry that had just arrived at the platform 100 metres further along. After leaving the chapel, it's two minutes to the ferry landing and we see from the notice that we'd have to wait another two hours for the ferry to return. It circulates around the whole of Lake Lucerne, stopping at seven villages.
Moving on to Sisikon, I check the train times on the website The Trainline, and see that there’s a train from Sisikon at 11.43am. We have 7 minutes to get there. Walking quickly, we arrive in time at the station but it’s too late to book the tickets on line so we try the automatic ticket machine. Following the prompts for two tickets, Ian swipes his visa card and the sign says take your tickets. No tickets. We do it all again. The sign says take your tickets. Still no tickets. And then the train arrives so we jump on. Ian checks his Wise Visa card statement and we see we’ve paid for our two sets of tickets twice. It shows two lots of 9.20CHF (4.60 CHF per person). Bummer!
The train takes only 10 minutes to get to Altdorf Bahnhof and we immediately go to the SBB office. Luckily we get someone who speaks English to explain what happened. They can see we’ve been charged twice and immediately refund the money, but the girl refunds it twice. The supervisor looks on and says no problem, too hard to change it’s OK. So we off we go, up the Bahnhofstrasse to the Zentrum.
We want to check out the Coop to see what we can buy for dinner. They don’t have pork fillet like we’d seen in Aldi two days ago. We’ll shop at Aldi later when we go to the Kantonal Bank which opens at 2pm, to change our old Swiss money for new. I have 250 CHF left over from our 2015 trip and since then, Switzerland has new plastic money and no one accepts old money. Rotem has said they should change it at any Altdorf Bank rather than make a special stopover in Zurich to go to the Swiss National Bank on our way back from Davos next week. We can’t walk out of Coop with nothing, so I buy two gala apples to eat on the way home, plus a small Entire cream for coffee.
The apples are beautiful and soon we’re back at our farmstay to have a coffee and cream with a piece of Al Porto Pannetone that we’ve carried from Locarno. Time to sit on the bed and blog while waiting for the bank to open at 2pm. Then there’s a knock on the door and it’s our host Rotem, offering to change the money for us as she is going shopping up the road. That’s so nice of her, saves us a trip. This is a wonderful place to stay.
At 4pm, we wander down to Aldi and return with a 500g pork fillet for 14 CHF, two large Portobello mushrooms, a box of Aldi brand red wine for 3.25 CHF and bananas. Still no rain as we walk back. Time for more blogging and looking for a place to stay in Zurich for the night before we leave. A few options to choose from. Dinner time, and our first cooked meal in weeks - half the pork fillet pan fried with mushrooms, capsicum and onion, with a pot of pumpkin soup condensed to a gravy. Bed at 930pm. Still no rain!