Using an eSIM in Lucerne

What Lucerne is like on a phone

Lucerne is a mid-sized lakeside town where people usually stop for a night or two on the way to the mountains. Visitors range from tour groups photographing the wooden bridge to families taking a boat out on the lake to travellers using the town as a base for a nearby summit. The centre is compact and can be walked in a day, and coverage across the built-up area is consistent. What is interesting is leaving the shore: this lake is long and reaches into the valleys, so your distance from any mast keeps changing as the boat goes on.

When you land

Most people arrive by train from Zurich, about an hour, at Lucerne station, which sits directly beside the boat quays. Anyone flying in comes through Zurich (ZRH) and can take a direct train without going into Zurich city first. Switch the line on inside the terminal, because you need to buy a ticket and pick a service. The route runs along the lake with short tunnels along the way, so service is largely continuous with brief breaks underground. At the station you are a few minutes' walk from the quays and the wooden bridge.

Where coverage changes

The centre, the riverside and the lakeside hotel district stay connected. On the covered wooden bridge there is still service, a little reduced by the timber frame and the roof overhead. Out on a boat it is good while you are passing lakeside villages and thins once the mountains close in on both sides with no settlement nearby. The cable cars and rack railways up the nearby summits break in stretches on the way and come back strongly at the top station.

What a day here costs in data

A day here runs about 500MB to 900MB, the town being small and the day built around walking and a boat. Booking boat and mountain tickets ahead is brief use, but save them to the device, because the boarding points are crowded stretches of waterfront. Anyone filming from the deck or from a summit runs clearly above that average. If you stay the night, leave the big upload for the accommodation's Wi-Fi in the evening.

Districts travellers ask about

• The wooden bridge and the old town: Under the bridge's roof the signal dips a little, and the painted squares of the old town slow when several tour groups arrive at once.
• The quays and the lakefront: Open waterfront that connects well — the place to have your boat ticket ready before joining the crowded midday queue at the pier.
• The Lion Monument quarter: A short climb with some of it tucked against rock: service holds, though your position on the map can sit ten metres off.
• The southern shore and the mountain foot: The shoreline villages keep usable service, but once the cable car starts climbing it breaks in stretches until the upper station.

Day trips out of the city

• A nearby summit by rack railway: The climb through forest and rock loses service in stretches before it returns strongly on the summit terrace — load the return ticket before you go up.
• The boat across the lake to Flüelen: Good service while the boat passes the shoreline villages, thinning where the mountains close in on both sides — not a stretch for an online meeting.
• Zug and the countryside around it: A short train with continuous service; the small lakeside town is normal, while the cycle paths across the fields thin a little where they run far from any village.