Museum of Transportation in Luzern

May 22

Today we did our usual bus and train to Bern and then jumped on a team to Luzern. This seems to be how J is passing the time. 

Who needs beautiful scenery when you've got Harry Potter?

This is a picture of the 5 cousins standing in front of Sissi with the grandparents of to the side. She and her sister Heidi, bored out 57 kilometers (~35 miles) to create the new Gotthard base tunnel.  She is ~33 feet tall and weighs just over 496 thousand pounds.

To paint it with a broad stroke is to say this museum houses ships, trains, planes and automobiles. But it houses more than you think. 

Here at J and D under a steam locomotive that allows you to walk down the stairs and all the way underneath it to the back looking at the locomotives underside the entire time. 

Here they are learning about a funicular railway. 

Then it was off to see the cars that J so badly wanted to see. He played a game where he voted for a group of 4 cars or things that utilize wheels to move and then to vote again for your favorite out of the group of four. Sadly I did not get a picture. But once all the votes are counted a robotic lift crane removes if from storage and brings it down in front of you. Really cool and engaging. So much so that I didn't get any pictures. Sorry!

Next it was on to the maritime building. Here are D and J in a rowing competition to try and beat a steam paddle boat like the one we rode on the Thunersee. I tried but lost to the steam paddle boat like D and J. You can see the steam pistons behind them, look for the red color. 

Here's a picture of the paddle wheel attached to the display. 

For perspective I got a picture of the other paddle wheel with D and J standing in front of it. 

The bottom model ship in the picture below is of the Blumlislap steam paddle boat we rode on the Thunersee. 

On the next floor up J came an grabbed me and told me I had to come see something. He showed me this.

They watched it for a good 15 minutes, enough to see it through 3 times. 

If you want to know its called the Tourismusflipper, please click here to see someone else's YouTube video.

Then we went around to the back of that floor and they had a computer (binary) interactive display. You would login by retrieving a purple dome shaped game piece and scan your museum ticket bar code. Then go over to various tables and learn about programming. Here's a picture of both D and J enjoying the tables. 

To logout you repeat the procedure that was done at log in, except you replace the purple dome. 

Then it was over to the aviation building. Both D and J wanted to be pilot in the plane below. Here's the long shot with J as pilot.  

And now for his close up. 

Here's D from a distance. 

And now for her close up.

The kids had a great time with a quasi flight simulator. They had a "stick" and left and right rudder pedals. The goal was to learn how movement of each affected the plane. Here's D having fun with it. 

Look at that concentration.

When the museum closed at 6PM we left the gift store empty handed and made our way back home. Liz and Rhed had gone ahead of us. So here are what the remaining 4 cousins did on the train rides back to Steffisberg. 

We stopped in Bern because the Migros store at the train station is open past 6:30 PM. We had received a phone call requesting that we pick up some milk. But you can't shop in Switzerland without buying chocolate. So we bought the milk and "some" chocolate. Then back on a train to Thun. 

Does this one look tired?

He can't stop reading Harry Potter , unless he's in a game of the Great Dalmuti.