Luzern (Saturday 10/31)

On Friday we drove from Lake Como, through the Italian and then Swiss Alps up to Lake Lucerne. We planned to spend the night there, but upon finding the hotel to be less than desirable, we continued on up to Zurich, about 40 minutes away, and added on two extra nights in the hotel we'd booked there for Sunday night. We were really disappointed not to be able to stay on the lake but this turned out to be a perfectly good arrangement and we were very comfortable in our Zurich hotel and it had a bath!! (Albeit about half the size of American ones! Too funny!)

So on the Saturday morning we walked over to a bakery near our Zurich hotel and got coffee and croissants for breakfast before heading out to Lake Lucerne to do some sight seeing. The city of Lucerne was packed with people all enjoying the good weather. We had fun browsing the Saturday fruit, vegetable and flower market, the beautiful (and VERY expensive!) shops, as well as a flea market that was going on near the waterfront.

As we were browsing the shops, we heard this strange sounding music coming from the central square. And there was this group of alpenhorn players! It was fascinating listening to the music...I felt like someone was about to yell "Ricola!"





Waterfront



Swans were everywhere!



Exquisitely painted building

The covered bridge, which was built in 1333, has a series of beautiful paintings inside depicting Lucerne's history. The tower was originally used as a prison and torture chamber!


Covered bridge across the mouth of the lake


Religious paintings up under the roof of the covered bridge


View of the city of Lucerne