Wednesday, October 18th 1854 ~ Lungern

Hotel du Lion d’Or. ~ The fine weather lasted but a single day. This morning it rained quite hard again. We breakfasted early at Lucerne, packed our trunks and forwarded them by poste to Berne and at nine o’clock we took a boat with two rowers for Fahr. It is only a trip of two hours and a half and our boat was covered by an awning which kept off the rain nicely. At Fahr we took a carriage for Lungern, through Sarnen, Sachseln and over the mountain called the Kaiser Stuhl. The road conducts along the borders of the little lakes Sarnen and Lung, which lie cradled among high hills and much above the level of Lake Lucerne. It is a highly picturesque road. The hills above it and among which it winds are as high as to be (many of them) covered with snow. The Swiss valleys along it are beautiful. In them we saw more of the real Swiss cottages than we have seen elsewhere, with their covered balconies, one above the other. We arrived here at four o’clock and find our hotel very comfortable. Lungern is a peasants’ village, surrounded on all sides but one by hills and here the carriage road ceases. Two men followed our carriage for some distance, to be engaged for tomorrow.