Lucerne

13th & 14th July 2010

Leaving Lauterbrunnen, we had a 2 hour train journey to get to Lucerne. After changing trains in nearby Interlaken we boarded the 'Panoramic Golden Pass' train. The trip was magnificent, climbing up mountains, passing lakes and going through some stunning scenery. It was very easy to just sit and watch it all go past instead of reading or playing on the laptop like we usually do!

When we eventually got to Lucerne, we had no directions at all to get to our hostel. We enquired at Tourist Information who gave us a map, pointed it out to us and sent us on our way. She told us it would be about 15 minutes walk. We headed up the road and after about 25 minutes walking we realised that we'd gone too far. We turned around and headed back down the hill, dumbfounded as to how we walked straight past the hostel. We were stoked that we'd planned our arrival right on 3pm, the usual check in time in Swiss hostels, but disappointed to find that this one bucked the trend and it was 4pm. There was nowhere safe to leave our bags so we decided to just sit and wait out the hour. Dan headed to the supermarket to get some lunch. While we were waiting some familiar faces appeared in the lounge room at the hostel; The older Australian couple I'd met in Lauterbrunnen while watching the football. We had a bit of a chat about their travel plans and what not and the time passed quickly until it was time to check in.

After we'd rid ourselves of our packs we headed down to the Lion Monument. It was massive. Carved into the side of a rock face, it shows a sad or dying lion, and it is there as a memorial to the Swiss Guard who were massacred during the French Revolution in 1792. Mark Twain once described it as the "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world." 1.

We went for a nice relaxing stroll along the lake afterwards watching all the different people making their way by. We found the "swimming pool", which was basically a wooden structure over the lake, where people pay a ridiculous amount of money to swim in the lake. I could do that for free 1m away from them. I could actually swim right up to the roped off part. I didn't, but if I wanted to I could've!

The dark clouds rolled in around 6pm again, so we stopped off at the supermarket on our way back up to the hostel, for fear of getting caught in the downpour. We cooked up some pasta for dinner, had a chat with a few other travelers while cooking before retiring to our room for TV while the rain came down.

Next morning we ate our breakfast and headed off to explore the town. We wandered through the beautiful old town and then made our way up to the old city wall. Of the 9 towers still up there, you can make your way up only 3 of them. We climbed up the first one with an open top, this provided an awesome view over the lake and the entire city.We made our way down and walked along to the next climbable tower, the clock tower. Once we'd been up there, we were able to walk along the top of the wall to the final open tower. It was bloody hot, and we were both sweating up a storm - all the climbing does it to you!! As we were making our way back down to the city, this little old lady stopped us and says (In a really strong Southern US drawl) "Is this the way to the wall?" We tell her it is, and where exactly to go (There was lots of renovation work going on), she then tells us that from our appearance she knew we spoke English and that the cruise she was on gave her a spoon. It started to become absolute nonsense, but we managed the old smile and nod routine before quickly scurrying away. It was hard work for us to climb the towers and walls in the heat, I had absolutely no idea how this little old Texan lady was going to manage, but off she went.

We enjoyed many litres of icy cold water out of the hundreds of public fountains. They look like water features, but people just put their mouths up to the lion, statue or whatever the water is shooting out of, and rehydrate. Its some of the best water I've ever drank in my life too. Perfect on the hot days we'd been having!

We spent the rest of the afternoon just ambling through the old town. We crossed the two covered over wooden bridges, both were pretty cool, and checked out a few of the shops. Later in the afternoon we grabbed the laptop and headed back down to the town as the whole city centre is covered by free wireless Internet!! Bonus as the wifi at our hostel was working! By the time we finished up sitting on the street corner, with our internet, small drops of rain appeared so we packed up, hit up the supermarket and headed for the hostel. We cooked a lovely dinner again, before heading up to our room where we tried to watch some TV but struggled to hear it over the sound of the thunderstorm going on outside. I think that it was quite possibly the loudest thunder I've ever heard in my life. Cannot begin to describe how loud it was! The lightning show and rain downpours were pretty impressive too - still didn't manage to cool the temperature down at all, which made it difficult to sleep!

1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Monument