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Twain and Joseph Twichell joined Twain's family in Lucerne August 12, 1878. They stayed at the Schweitzerhof Hotel until August 21. Twain returned to Lucerne in August of 1897. (See Baden to Lucerne)

From Page 260-1 The Life of Mark Twain - The Middle Years 1871-1891:

Sam soon discovered that the beauty of Lake Lucerne “had not been exaggerated,” The city, moreover, was ‘a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with a fringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or three sharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering to the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient embattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here and there an old square tower of heavy masonry.” The day after their reunion, the entire family and Rosina enjoyed, as Livy put it, “a little ride on the lake" in a steamboat to Flüelen  and "a most enjoyable afternoon."

 

Excursion to the Rigi-Kulm

August 15 Thursday – The entire Clemens party took a two-day excursion to the Rigi-Kulm. They spent the night in a hotel on the Rigi to watch the sunset and sunrise.

In a letter of Aug. 20, Sam described the ascent and descent to his mother:

Twichell & I took a stroll ... to the summit of Rigi, where the rheumatism captured me once more & we had to come down with the others by rail. It was a good deal like coming down a ladder by rail. I did not like it.

Journey from Lucerne to Interlaken

August 21 Wednesday – Sam hired a carriage and the group continued on to Interlaken, Switzerland.
From Sam’s notebook: “Left in 4-horse ambulance. Proprietor gave children box”

Rodney observes it was a “rugged journey” with “primitive roads past mountain chalets, through enticing villages, up and over the Brünig Pass, and down to Lake Brienz and Interlacken at the foot of the High Alps.” The sixty mile trip took ten hours. They took rooms at the Jungfrau Hotel.
(Day By Day)

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