Lucerne, and the early boat

We rolled into Luzern eight minutes early, which Marc treats as a personal failing because it means we hurried for nothing. It's a terminus, so the train stops dead against the buffers and you walk out the back straight at the lake, grey-silver that morning and half-swallowed in mist. No walk down to it. It's just there at the end of the Perron, and I have never quite gotten used to that.

A Saturday, Lotti left with my mother in Chur, because a lake boat and a stubborn brown dog are a poor combination. September couldn't make up its mind: humid, maybe nineteen degrees, a sky that kept threatening rain and never sent any. We had a coffee standing up at the counter inside the station, both a little short with each other the way you get before a day has properly started and nobody has had enough coffee. Nothing said. Just an edge to it that took until the water to lift.

The early boat

The boats leave from their own little quay two minutes across the road, not the station. I'd half-hoped for one of the old paddle steamers with all the brass, but the early hops are a plain motor boat, and this was no exception, and Marc, who I'd talked it all up to, gave it a flat oh. We went out toward Weggis and back regardless, an hour or so, the mist burning off as we went and the lake turning from pewter to blue by the time we came in. There's a stretch where the Bürgenstock climbs straight out of the water and the boat feels very small under it. That was the bit I'd wanted him to see, and for once the seats he'd steered us to faced the right way, which he then claimed he'd done on purpose.

Back on land, a Rägetröpfli before the train, the little kirsch chocolate they do here, which is about as much kirsch as you want before noon and a bit more. Merci to whoever decided that was acceptable at this hour. The train home was nothing to write down. I checked the connection out of habit, put the phone away, watched the water go. It didn't rain.

— Tobi