Lucerne

We drove from Como to Switzerland on the motorway on a beautiful sunny Sunday (yesterday). We would have liked to take some back roads as we did before in June of 2012 but all of the passes are still closed. So, we had to stick with the highway which goes under the mountains (through lengthy tunnels) rather than over them.

A view of Switzerland from the motorway rest stop

We arrived in Lucerne, a small city about one hour southwest of Zurich, in mid afternoon. Lucerne is full of tourists, even at this early month in the year. Mainly bus loads of Asians (a lot of Koreans, I think) and also quite a few Indians. But, the city was still not that crowded and we found parking in a central underground parking garage easily (though it was 12.50 Swiss Francs for several hours). We walked around the town to see the major sights which include the Lion Monument, the Old Church, the two wooden bridges which date from the 1300's/1400's, and the large assortment of well kept up traditional Swiss buildings. Of course, Lake Lucerne is an ever present factor in the city's beauty. We also bought a couple of the obligatory Swiss Army Knives (for gifts).

The main church in Lucerne

An old restored building near the main church

Randy before we visited the church

Alice in the terrace leading to the church

The relatively restrained interiors of the Swiss churches are quite different from those we found in Italy

The enormous organ

Although swamped by tourists, the Lion Monument remains worth seeing and really touching

The monument is dedicated to the Swiss Guard who perished while defending the royal family of France during the French revolution

A detail of this fine sculpture

View of old Lucerne

The weather was nice and showed off the lake to advantage

More wild swans were found on the lak

A double selfie with Lake Lucerne

A group of swans wait for food handouts along Lake Lucerne

Randy in front of the large modern art museum along the lake. A concert there was just getting out and Lucerne's well dressed and mostly older citizens were pouring out of the building

A panorama of Lucerne from the other side of the river (from the museum area)

Another view. You can see why this is a touristic place.

One of the paintings in the Chapel Bridge. This dates back to the mid 1300's.

This is the oldest bridge in Switzerland with its stone water tower

The onion domed Jesuit Church is also impressive

Here it is

One of the interesting (and even weird) fountains that dot Lucerne

One of the town squares

The old and interesting second wooden bridge in Lucerne, the Spreuer Bridge, which dates from the mid 1400's

The small dam in downtown Lucerne over the River Reuss

The river and the town from the Spreuer Bridge

The small chapel located midway on the Spreuer Bridge

A nice architectural detail from Lucerne

Another weird statue, this one of a lion with its tongue stuck out

After a few hours of walking we decided to find dinner. We chose a traditional restaurant in a small, upscale hotel. The restaurant is in the main downtown area but tucked away in a side street. It was quite elegant and full of older Swiss local couples. It was nice to find somewhere where locals eat their Sunday dinner out. We dined well on soup, sausage (for Randy) and fresh trout from Lake Lucerne (for Alice). We also drank some Swiss white wine that was quite good. The prices, by Swiss standards, were quite acceptable. All in all, a good choice considering it was made pretty randomly. We then walked back to our car and drove back to our rented apartment (more on this place in a later post). Clive (our normally reliable GPS) gave us some exciting moments by deciding not to work (he was searching for satellites) for about 20 minutes. Trying to navigate by signs and the terrible maps we had was not very successful so it was extremely frustrating until Clive finally came on line. What did we do before GPS?