A Day in Lucerne

One of the optional tours for this cruise is a day in Lucerne. It isn't an organized tour, more like just a bus transfer where our tour directors pass out maps and information and then let us loose in town with only a requirement to be back to the meeting place in time to catch the bus back.

Originally Larry was a little iffy on going, but as we said in the last post another couple on the ship recommended it as a place to see, so we signed up. It seemed like we would have a pretty punctual crowd on this trip, as we left right at 9:00 in the morning. Probably the people who had to force themselves to get out of bed took comfort in the fact that they could get another hour's sleep on the way there. And back!

It was a very easy trip on the Autobahn, with typical views out the windows:

Once we arrived we were given the basic orientation info and our maps and turned loose.

This statue carved into the side of a hill is a symbol
of the city depicting the conquered lion of
Helvetia. It used to be hidden behind an old
office building which was torn down and replaced by a park.

Lucerne, or Luzern in Swiss/German, is famous for its covered bridges which have been in place for hundreds of years - well, at least one of them has.

The world-famous Kapellbruecke

In 1993 the Kapellbrücke or Chapel Bridge was burned down when a tourist (surprise, surprise!) flicked a cigarette off the bridge and into the water. Unfortunately it landed in a wooden boat moored to the bridge instead and the resulting fire spread across the entire structure. The bridge has been rebuilt to look almost exactly the same, though 90% of the frescoes within the bridge were lost, and now there are NO SMOKING signs just about everywhere.

The Spreuerbruecke in the background. The reason the water is so
fast here is that just beyond the end of the bridge on the right
used to be the town's mills and part of the river was diverted for the mill.
This is just near where the water spills back out.

Of course, there's no such thing as a European city or town without at least one church, and Luzern is no different. In order:  The Jesuitenkirche, or Jesuit church:

Outside - need we say more?

Next up, the Franciscan Church:

And finally, a little later in the day, the Hofkirche, or the town's main church. This was originally built in 735 but a fire burned most of the building down and it was rebuilt in 1633.

The church cemetery. Looks very much like the one in Salzburg
that they used for 'The Sound of Music'.

In between, we walked along the river that flows from the Vierwaldstättersee. This lake is called Lake Lucerne by those unable to pronounce its real name, which means 'Lake of the Four Forest States'. This dates back to before Switzerland became a formal federation of states, when four of these independent states all bordered onto the same lake. 

Just as a trivia point: in Europe, most cars have those little stickers that might show 'GB' for Great Britain, 'F' for France, 'D' for Deutschland...but the Swiss symbol is 'CH'. Huh? How'd they get that out of 'Switzerland'? It actually stands for Confederation Helvetia, Helvetia being the name for the peoples who inhabited the area since after the Romans established it. The story of William Tell shooting the apple from his son's head is based in the legends of the peoples' resistance movement against the Holy Roman Empire in the 13th century and is said to be one of the first events that led to the lands of Helvetia gaining their independence and becoming a confederation of states.

We had lunch at the Rathaus Brauerei, right on the edge of the river. Larry ate Bavarian Weisswurst with a pretzel, while Monica had some local freshwater fish, known as Zander, with a salad.

Monica's fish by the river

Our waitress was nice enough to take a photo of us
and our dessert - ice cream and whipped cream, what
could be better?

We had to work off that lunch, so our next stop was the towers on the original city walls, which were on a bit of hill to start with. Our map was a helpful guide, and we finally found the clock tower (each tower on the wall has a different name) and made our way up onto the wall.

After coming back down, we headed for the waterside and did a little shopping - after all, there are still a few empty spaces on our fridge that need a classy magnet!

How can anyone get tired of a view like this?

A couple of swans near the shore. They are much more
prevalent here in Europe than at home.

It was a wonderful day accompanied by great weather! We would have been really sorry to have missed it when we looked at other peoples' photos and realized how beautiful the town really was.

To close for the day, an interesting bit of trivia from our guide. Dairy is big business in Switzerland and a few years back scientists testing milk found it contained traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Turns out the farmers were growing hemp (marijuana) for winter feed for the cows because it grows, well, like a weed, and is cheap. The Swiss make a lot of cheese and the most popular spreadable cheese from Switzerland  is The Laughing Cow. And NOW WE KNOW why the cow is laughing!!!!!!!