Day 3 - Wednesday July 19 - Old City of Lucerne and Mt. Pilatus

 

Our first day of touring!  We left the hotel at 9 am and headed 15 minutes down the road to the old town of Lucerne for a 2 hour walking tour.  

Our first stop, we picked up a local guide who walked us to the Lion Monument.  It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

If there's a bench, Wayne will find it.

From there we went into the Old City for a guideed tour of some of the famous landmarks.  The most famous is the Chapel Bridge.  The timber bridge, together with the water tower are a landmark of Lucerne.  It burned to the ground in 1993 and was rebuilt in 8 months.  The bridge is 672 feet long and is covered with gorgeous flowers.  This year, the flowers are impatiens.   In past years, Wayne tells me, there were geraniums along the entire length of the bridge.

We walked the length of the bridge and looked at some of the original paintings on the triangular interior frames.  Many burned in the fire, but some were saved and are hanging there now.  They date back to the 17th century and depict events from Lucerne's history.  There were originally 158 paintings; 47 were collected after the fire and 30 were restored and hang inside the bridge today.

The city of Lucerne is really clean.  There's no dirt in the streets and no grafitti I could find.  Everywhere you looked there were beautiful flowers.  

Sights from around town.

I thought it was a castle up on the hill.  It turns out it's a hotel presently Russian owned.

City Hall - Renaissance style

Some more of the amazing flowers in the town

We visited a Jesuit church, the Jesuitenplatz, on the far side of the bridge.  Inside the altar looks like marble but is not; nonetheless it's beautiful and the painted ceilings are lovely.  

Walking through the old city, our guide showed us more of the buildings, the painted walls on some of them and statutes depicting the town's history.

Water is drinkable from all of the town fountains with the water coming right down from the Alps.  We all tried some and it was really good.

Needle Dam near the Chapel Bridge

We were free for lunch and stopped at a pub for a beer and some fish and chips.   Switzerland boasts a minimum wage of approximately $23.50 (US) and the prices for EVERYTHING reflect that people in Switzerland (this area, at least) have money!  

I found a fabric store, wandered around in it for 15 minutes but didn't buy anything.  Ladies who quilt will understand.  Nothing struck me as a "must buy" and when you convert the Swiss Franc (the swiss currency) to US dollars, it's approximately $32 a yard!  It would have to be special and what cottons I saw, were just standard fabric I could purchase in the US.

We boarded our bus and were taken to the steepest cog railroad in the world for a ride up Mt. Pilatus.  It has a maximum grade of 48%.  It opened in 1889 as steam driven and reopened in 1937 using electricity.  The ride up to the top of Mt. Pilatus was beautfiul.  Looking down over Lucerne and the lake was special.   Once on the top, 7,000 feet above sea level, the weather was perfect for us.  The sun was out and the air was crisp and cool.  

I should say now that I have packed all the wrong clothes.  Before closing the suitcase, I looked at the weather and it showed highs of 70's and lows of 50's.  I should have looked at the humidity.  We are wringing wet with perspiration.   I'm drinking as much water as I can but there isn't enough.  Even my New Jersey humidity is nothing compared to yesterday and today.  So the top of Mt. Pilatus was WONDERFUL.  Much of the European hotels are without any air conditioning as it is not normally needed.  All we have in the room is a floor fan.  We left the door to the balcony open last night which allowed us to sleep.  

I guess I also need to say here that Wayne is afraid of heights so the ride up and down were not as interesting to him.   He studied shoelaces on the way up, not caring to look outside.  

The way down was via gondola.  The first stage to approximately 4,700 feet was on a large goldola holding about 55 people.  We switched to gondolas at that point only holding 4 people for the ride back down to the base.

A 1/2 bus ride back to the hotel and it's time for a wine and cheese party in the hotel's garden compliments of the tour company, Odyssey Tours.   

We pack up tonight and tomorrow we will have a boat ride on Lake Lucerne and then a train ride (about 3 hours) to Zermatt.  It is a town without any cars.  Our luggage will be taken almost to Zermatt and then put on electric trollies and delivered to our hotel.  A little higher in elevation, I'm hoping for some slightly cooler weather.  And, perhaps air conditioning in the hotel!