A Trip to Luzern
On the 11th of May me and a handful of students embarked on a trip to Luzern, a city situated North East from Geneva and East from Bern. We left school rather early in the morning by my standards (08:00) on a bus. To be honest one of my favourite parts of the day was the bus ride to and from Luzern. After all, what’s not to like? You’re pampered with many different views without having to break a sweat. That’s the thing I like about road trips; you can indulge yourself with the sights ahead in the comfort of a cushioned seat with air conditioning. What’s not to like?
After about 2 and a half hours (10:30-45ish) we arrived in the city. It was quite packed to say the least. There were people bustling around squares and patrolling the pavements. From formal businessmen and women to families with prams full of young’uns, it seemed extremely diverse to myself. Our destination was a museum; a transport museum. Upon arrival I decided to walk around aimlessly for a bit just to familiarize myself with the surroundings. When I had fooled around enough I decided to visit a section of the building called the “Media World”. It was an area where we were free to try on virtual reality headsets, use greenscreens, 360 degree cameras and much much more. My favourite part of the exhibit was the VR racing simulator. It’s exactly what it sounds like, you don a VR headset, hop into the driver’s seat and you’re off to the races, literally. I shan’t lie. I wasn’t as adept a racer as I thought I would be. I’m fairly certain after watching me drive that car no one would get into a car with me at the wheel.
It took me a while to realize but I hadn’t actually seen any forms of transport aside from that virtual car. So I headed back downstairs and found the entrance to what we actually came here for: the transport museum. It was quite the experience. From little, single carriages on tracks that were horse drawn to iron behemoths that once brought people and goods from far and wide, the display was very impressive and most importantly, diverse. I caught sight of a large model mountain that was riddled with tunnels and train tracks that burrowed in and out of the rocky outcrops. I’m glad to say that I managed to see them turn on the display and get the chance to see several little trains whizzing around the mountain side. By this time we had to be going for lunch.
Myself and 3 houseparents ended setting up shop on a lawn beside the lake. It struck me there, that it seems this lake really did connect all of the places I’ve been to. From Montreux to Geneva to here in Luzern. I ended up eating a fraction of my lunch and feeding another bit to a couple- a duck couple (might have been mallards, I’m not familiar with waterfowl). When I was finished I took a 20 minute walk round the lake with houseparent Eric. We had a nice conversation (mostly about travelling etc.) and then we turned around and headed back the way we came. By then it was time to head back to school and enjoy the ride back while. There’s still quite a bit to say about that trip but long pieces of texts seem intimidating so I’ll just end it here.
By Casper Ko
