Lovely Lucerne!

28 December 2011 – Lovely Lucerne!

The famous covered bridge

Walking along the Medieval Wall

The famous Lion Monument - see details below or in the album

Enjoying the breathtaking scene scape along the water!

Are we in France?  Or Germany?  Or Italy?  Or Switzerland?!  

It’s hard to tell!  When we landed in Geneva everything was in French, by the time we reached Bern – less than a two hour train trip away, nearly everything was in German, and then today while hearing German all over, we stepped into several restaurants that transported us to Italy – although in one restaurant the waiter spoke nearly all Italian…and in another French.  Who knows!  Switzerland actually has four national languages - technically Geneva speaks French, Bern and Lucerne are both German-speaking....

We have had several wonderful mix ups with language the past few days (which is truly what I consider to be one of the greatest triumphs of a traveler) in which people have approached us fluently speaking various languages we do not speak…and then laughing when we have that slight look of confusion, or respond back in German-glish or French-glish or some other bastardization of a beautiful European language.  In other words… WE BLEND IN enough to be considered European and it absolutely delights me!   :-)

Lucerne had a different feel from Geneva and from Bern…and we are very pleased with our daily city hopping…it has been a lot of fun.  The key is that we don’t travel on the train for very long and our hotels are walking distance to the train station…so it really is quite simple!  Today we met an incredibly helpful gentleman who sold us our train tickets and explained that if we buy a ticket from Bern to Innsbruck via Lucerne that is good for an entire month we would save a good bit of money – done deal!  We also went ahead and reserved a seat on the train from Zurich to Innsbruck because there are only four or five of those a day.  (Most of the trains between major Swiss towns run once or twice an hour so no reservations required).  The trains have been very pleasant so far.

Highlights of today can best be seen in the album (click on the link below…I really don’t know why we can’t embed the albums like before, but we are working on fixing the glitch!) but included strolling through the city over Lucerne’s many beautiful bridges and along the lake; having the day clear up enough for us to see the breathtaking snow covered Alps start jutting out all around the city’s perimeter; walking along the medieval city wall and admiring the towers (you can climb them in the summer…closed during winter); and making the trek to see the Lion Monument – which is a very sad carving of a lion that symbolizes the Swiss guard’s sacrifice as they all died trying to defend Marie Antoinette at Tuilieries in Paris during the French Revolution. 

Tomorrow we are off to the igloo for Daniel’s birthday!  Wish us warm thoughts!  We are really excited!

Enjoy the photos! (Click on the link)