The city of Luzern is just a 45 minute train ride from Zurich, one that I found more than worth the effort when experiencing much enchantment and stunning views of the waters and mountainous regions surrounding it.
The Entlebuch’s Enchanted Plums
Residing west of Luzern is the Entlebuch, about 35 minutes by train at the stop called Schupfheim. It’s made up of eight villages and spans some 154 square miles and contains many of the Alps’ rolling foothills: roughly one per cent of Switzerland’s land area. One fourth of this area is now protected moors (highland marshlands), which exuded a pleasantly eerie feeling amidst the fog, making me wonder if any monsters were lurking there.
The first settlers here came in the 11th century, but for the last two centuries, one passed-down fairy tale has captivated the locals involving a plum-like fruit called the Zyberli. It’s featured in a five year old-plus German book Zyberli-Gschicht. As a big fan of children’s stories, I got to visit this land, where, according to the story, little people known as the Bargmandli used to pan for gold for their valley masters (Talherrens), and in return for making the latter rich, they would receive the Zyberli fruit. But this would end as the egotistical Talherrans chopped all the fruit trees down so they could build bigger thrones for themselves, making the little people leave, leaving the Talherrans without more gold.
I started out on the three mile circular trail in the town of Romoos at the Hotel Kreuz, and soon came upon a newly planted Zyberli tree on a lawn. My path then took me outside the town center to the Forest Gate, where I would then embark on long and winding dirt roads that were wet with dead leaves from a steady drizzle, which I navigated with my walking pole, opening and closing many gates.
Little feet symbols were plastered along the trail to make sure I didn’t get lost, leading me to such places as the school for the Bargmandli, where actual kids convene to get lessons on acting responsible in the forest amidst beautiful and peaceful surroundings that include a natural babbling brook soundtrack.
One of the advantages of staying with “locals” is discovering jewels that you could never find on your own. That was the case when the next day, our friend drove us up into the hills, on rough and windy roads that required four-wheel-drive, up past fat cows wearing giant cow bells, till we ended up at a tiny chalet and farm, for lunch.
