Touching the locomotives was always allowed.
Bachmann am quai
Gelato eaten with the lake for company.
Bachmann's gelateria stands on the Kurplatz, the small square on Lake Lucerne between the Schweizerhofquai and the Nationalquai, a few steps from the 1908 music pavilion where brass bands still play on summer evenings. The pavilion housing the gelateria has intent behind it: architect Marc Jöhl gave it an asymmetric wooden facade meant to echo the branches of the horse chestnuts lining the quai.
Bachmann makes its gelato fresh daily, following an Italian method, and pairs it with coffee, pastries and a seasonal run of snacks and salads, eaten at the counter or carried to a bench along the water. The lake opens up right in front, the Pilatus massif rising behind it.
Cyclists and walkers on the lakeside route treat it as an automatic stop. So does anyone with nowhere particular to be that afternoon.
More in Lucerne
A dying lion cut into rock, and a hush visitors keep without being told to.
Applause fading into the stillness of the lake outside.
Brass and folk tunes drifting across still water as the light over Pilatus turns from gold to grey.