Grass, lake wind, and the spot where three cantons once swore an oath.
Lake Lucerne boat to Vitznau
A paddle steamer across water so still it mirrors the mountains.
Lake Lucerne (the Vierwaldstättersee, the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons) is not a simple shape. It twists and narrows through mountain valleys, changes direction, opens into basins and closes into straits. The only honest way to understand it is to be on it.
The paddle steamer route to Vitznau takes about an hour along the lake's eastern arm. Old wooden boats, restored and still running, move at the pace of the lake itself: unhurried, deliberate, the mountains passing on both sides. Vitznau is a quiet village on the southern shore, the departure point for the Rigi, Europe's first mountain railway, built in 1871.
Take the boat one way. Take the train another. The lake rewards this kind of patience.
Usually visited together
More in Lucerne
Take the world's steepest cogwheel railway and disappear into the clouds.
A lakeside castle with gardens where time moves differently.
A mineral bath on a mountain. Below you, a sea of clouds. Above you, nothing.
A cliff walk above the lake that Audrey Hepburn called home.