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| Luzern,
the first city I ever saw outside Britain.
I left my suitcase at the hotel on the banks
of the river and walked towards the lake in
the spring sunshine. There were two things
I had not expected. Some of the trolleybuses
were articulated with the conductor sitting
at the back to take the fares, although they
were about to be phased out in favour of ticket
machines at the bus stops. Many years later
'bendy' buses would be introduced in the UK
as something new but this was my first sight
of them. |
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| Then
there were the mail vans and also some trucks
made by Saurer which were right hand drive.
I thought that the mail vans might be to allow
the driver to get out on the kerb side or
it might be because not so long before the
driver had sat on the nearside of postal buses
so that he was close to the edge of the mountain
roads. But I never did find out the real reason. |
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| During
my stay I had time in the evenings to wander
away from the city centre and discovered that
the smartness of the tourist area soon gave
way to the parts where people lived and worked.
But there was still something exotic about
the building styles, even the newer ones were
somehow different. Tired after the long journey,
I spent the first day getting my bearings
and finding out what I could do the rest of
the week. |
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| Luzern:
Hofkirche |
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Löwendenkmal |
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Rathausquai |
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Trolleybus |
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Trolleybus |
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| The
dome in the last picture belongs to the railway
station and would be destroyed along with
the rest of this fine Victorian building in
the fire on the 6th of February
1971. |
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| Switzerland seemed
very clean and well looked after compared with Britain
and France. In 1968 it was still a very conservative
country, as yet untouched by the social revolution
of the swinging sixties. In most Cantons women had
no vote and where they could it had been a recent
development. Women could vote at Federal level from
1971 but the last Canton (Appenzell Innerhoden)
to grant equality would not do so until 1990.. |
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