SWITZERLAND - DAY 1

We had a leisurely breakfast before walking down to the bus for our excursion to Lucerne. We traveled out of Zurich going through several tunnels through mountains. The longest tunnel was five kilometres long. The weather was not the best, wet and windy, temperature back down to ten degrees.

Along the way we learnt a little about Switzerland. For example the people speak four languages. German is the most popular language of Switzerland, however they also speak French. A small minority speak Italian and a very small portion speak a Latin based language that is only found in a small canton (state) of Switzerland. The children also all learn English while at school. Switzerland has over 1000 lakes and they pride themselves on how clean their water is. They recycle their water and put it back into their lakes. It's top export is the coffee capsules for Nespresso. The second biggest export is Red Bull. It's interesting that their top export is coffee considering they don't grow cacao beans.

We arrived in Lucerne, the eighth largest city of Switzerland of 60 000 inhabitants. The name Lucerne originates from the latin word meaning lantern or light.

Our first stop was the Chapel Bridge. It was built in the 14th century. It was originally used as a rampart, as well as part of the town fortification. Originally 285 metres long, the bridge was shortened several times during the 19th century. The Water Tower served as a dungeon, archive and treasury vault.

In the 17th century the Chapel Bridge was adorned with a set of paintings. The paintings depicted the development of the city and republic of Lucerne from a Counter-Reformation point of view. Other pictures portrayed the life and suffering of the town's two patron saints, St. Leodegar and St. Mauritius.

During the night of 17th August 1993, a fire broke out on the Chapel Bridge, burning 81 of the 111 bridge paintings. the paintings on both bridge-heads escaped damage by the blaze. The bridge was rebuilt. They still don't know who or how the fire started.

Next we climbed up to the Musegg Wall and Towers. This was formally part of the ring wall that protected the city. We started at one end and climbed up the first tower. From here we had some awesome views of Lucerne and the surrounding mountains. We then had to go all the way to the bottom and walked along the path beside the wall. Ellexis decided to touch the electric wire keeping the cattle in to see what would happen. It gave her a small zap. Silly girl, she had to try it even after we told her several times not to touch it.

We came to the third tower and climbed to the top. Again some great views. A school backed onto the wall and tower. It looked like the wall of the tower might have been the boundary wall of the school yard. We then walked along the battlements to the next tower, which of course we had to climb up to the top. This tower was taller than the last one. It had two old clocks in. It was great. The girls could see the inner workings of the clock with the pendulum. We continued along the battlements until we came to the fourth tower. Up we went again to look out over Lucerne. We couldn't go any further as the rest was under restoration so we wandered down the streets to the main part of town.

We decided we would like to go the the Swiss Museum of Transport so we boarded bus 6 and headed off. We arrived and wow! Outside the building was this massive gripper tunnel boring machine. In 2010 it broke through the eastern tube of the Gotthard Base Tunnel grabbing the record for the longest railway tunnel in the world. The Gotthard Base Tunnel comprises of two 57 kilometre single-track tubes. They are interconnected every 325 metres with cross passages. Including all the connecting and access tunnels and shafts, the entire tunnel system is more than 150 kilometres in length. When finished, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will run at up to 2,300 metres under the imposing Alps.

We entered the building and the girls immediately saw an area in the inner courtyard where they could play. We checked out the prices and nearly had a heart attack. To get into the museum alone where were looking at 75 Swiss Francs. We changed our minds about going in. The girls got to play in the courtyard as that part was free.

We left the museum and slowly walked back to the main part of town along the lakeside promenade. It was beautiful. We saw swans building nests and sitting on their eggs as well as an abundance of flowers and trees. In one part there was a huge horse statue, which the girls got to sit on.