Luzern: 'round about town

After disembarking from our good Alruna in Basel, we took an enjoyable bus ride through the Swiss countryside to our last stop in Luzern. On the way to the hotel once we entered the city, we made a quick stop at a sightseeing highlight: the Lion Monument/Löwendenkmal:

It honors the Swiss Guards who were killed during the French Revolution (their names are carved into the stone below the lion). To be sure, they were defending the wrong side of history, but they stayed loyal to their posts, and that's what the Swiss find admirable. And it's a lovely monument, with the amazing sculpture you see here set back from a peaceful pool. Here's a closeup of the lion, so you can better appreciate the artistry that gives it such a personality:

The monument is in a part of town that's too far from the other tourist areas to be included in the walking tour we took after dropping off our bags at the hotel. Our Viking guide, excellent as usual, gave us a good overview of the areas around the Reuss River and the lake on this walk. He offered suggestions for activities to pursue on our own, as well as a first-rate dining recommendation (more on this later).

A couple of the sights we visited on the tour were two impressive churches on and near the river. One was prominently featured in one of my previous posts. Right on the river is the marvelously baroque Jesuit Church, with its twin onion domes, right next to the Kapellbrücke. Here's a shot of the interior:

Not far away is the much older, though not as flashy, Franciscan Church. It also has a handsome interior, just not as gaudy as its neighbor:

After our orientation, one of the sights we particularly wanted to take in on our own was an exploration of at least part of the city's medieval wall. Apparently it has nine towers on its entire length; we were only able to see a few of them. (I think the wall isn't continuous anymore, so we only saw one section.) But walking along the wall afforded wonderful views (like the one at the top of this post). Here's the view along the wall:

And here are two of the towers we saw, only one of which I was able to identify from the article I linked above:

Zyt Tower; the clock is big enough to be seen from the lake

The elaborate illustration on this tower was imitated on some of the regular buildings in the old city, too:

Another decorative motif that I noticed all over town (at least the parts of the town we were able to take in during our brief stay) was the blue and white stripes that you can see here. This was a building Henry and I saw on our post-dinner stroll on our first night in town.

Since the Swiss flag is red and white, I puzzled about this color scheme for a while before deciding it must be emblematic of Luzern's canton (what Swiss districts, or counties, are called). And sure enough, Wikipedia verified this for me.

So what about those dining recommendations? We had a pretty fancy Italian dinner that first night at Ristorante Rossini (reservations made by our helpful Viking hotel host). Sorry, no pictures there. But our Viking guide's recommendation of Heine's for a good, reasonably-price lunch was spot on. We ate there on day 1 and were pleasantly surprised at the amount of food we got  for our 20-some-euros. The menu just said soup and salad, but we also got these delicious loaves of bread!

We figured we couldn't go wrong by eating there after our Mt. Pilatus adventure on day 2. This time we were a little more adventurous and I ordered the specialty of the house: Luzerne Chügelipastetli. The menu provided a description of the dish: puff pastry filled with veal and mushrooms, and it tasted as good as it sounded (and as it looks):

Our evening stroll around the lake ended up with another (un-pictured) first-class meal, this one with an even less-touristy feel. I had some of the best Kartoffelsalat I've ever had from a food truck in the park. (That's potato salad, and I am something of a connoisseur.) Yes, the quality of Luzern's food matches the quality of its scenery, which is high praise indeed!

I hope you've enjoyed these posts covering our second Viking adventure. Sitting in 100° San Antonio as I write them, the whole trip seems almost like it was a dream. I will be taking another trip soon to cooler climes and I look forward to telling you about it.

Luzern: on top of the world!

A trip highlight within a trip highlight—that was the fabulous day we spent on (and riding up to) Mount Pilatus, the most imposing, and most scenic, of the mountains surrounding Lake Lucerne.

Don't worry, I'll show you plenty of views from up top, but the ride up was pretty cool, too. As you might have seen last Wordless Wednesday, we flew over a really, really long sommerrodelbahn run. (We didn't have time to take one of these thrill rides on this trip, but we did back in 1996, my first trip to Europe.) 

To get to the top of Pilatus (or almost the top; the trails that lead to its actual—multiple—summits were still snowed over) you have to take a set of two gondolas. The first one is similar to what takes you high above Monarch Pass near our place in Colorado.

These cars only hold 4 people and stop at a giant recreation area (where you can get the toboggan run as well as enjoy other fun amenities). Then you get on a much bigger people-mover (I think I remember seeing the capacity was 50?) for the final lap:

The building you see at the right here is only one edge of a really nice resort complex (there's even a hotel! where it's easy to fantasize about staying). The picture below doesn't even capture all of it; there's a whole big restaurant (as well as part of the hotel?) off to the right:

I took that picture from the top of a rather strenuous, but well-worth-it climb to a viewing area that has handy mile markers next to a photo-ready seat...

...as well as views just as breathtaking as you might expect...

looking at the side of the mountain away from Luzern

and the view looking back towards the town and the lake

You can get something of an idea of the platform, and the path to it, if you click on this picture, to enlarge it. It was taken from just outside the gondola station/snack bar/gift shop:

yes, it was kinda cold; notice the icicle

There's also a nice tunnel that takes you a good ways around the peak with the platform. You can see the beginning of it in the photo above. All along the way there are viewing spots (you can also see a couple of these in the picture) that afford wonderful photo opps of the surrounding countryside:

this pathway was almost a wind tunnel...we were colder here than up on top!

but the views were worth it!

a look out further around the mountain

What a fabulous capper (ahem) to our stay in Luzern! We found the city itself to be quite delightful, and I'll close out this series of posts with some miscellaneous Luzern sights next time.

Wordless Wednesday: Whee!

 

Luzern: the lake

Boy! Are we ever glad we chose to take Viking's Luzern extension! It's hard to imagine a more glorious natural setting for a city. And a lot of the credit for this gloriousness has to go to the lake it perches next to. Of course, the mountains ringing said lake deserve high (ahem!) praise, too, and I'll show you lots more about them next time. But the lake itself is well worth a blog post.

The first day of the extension was fairly cloudy, and at least some of the mountain views were obscured. But as you can see here, when Henry and I took an after-dinner stroll, the skies were already clearing...

have you ever seen a more gorgeous moonrise?!

...and for our next two days we had amazing weather:

Our last full day we took a short (1-hour as opposed to 3) boat tour around the lake that let us appreciate its beauty more fully. The picture just above was one I took from out in the lake. Here was our cruise craft:

Later that evening we took a nice walk along the lakeshore, heading away from the main, touristy, parts of town (thanks again, Jack, for this great advice!). And the views all along were just stupendous...

there was lots of nice landscaping along the lakeshore park

you just can't beat mountains as sunset approaches for amazing scenery

more lovely flowers providing foregrounds

I'll close with a more panoramic view of the lake, this one from 6,000+':

How did we get to such an amazing vantage point? Stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday: swan songs

Luzern: the river to the lake

We said good-bye to our fair Alruna in Basel, Switzerland (our fourth country in a week!), where the cruise-worthiness of the Rhine ends. So the river in my title here is the Reuss, fourth-longest river in the country, and the one that flows into the gorgeous Lake Lucerne and provides wonderful riverside attractions along the way. That's what I'll show you this time, and next time I'll focus on the lake.

Viking put us on a bus in Basel, and we were ferried in comfort to Luzern and our post-cruise extension, learning some interesting stuff about Switzerland along the way. And as wonderful as the cruise was, we think we might just have saved the best for last.

Our hotel in Luzern (this is the German spelling and I'm trying to stick with that, since the city is in the mostly German-speaking region of Switzerland*) might not have been quite as swank as the one in Amsterdam, but it was very nice and in a great location. The picture below shows you what it looks like from the lake...yes, it's named the Art Deco Hotel Montana, with no reason given for the western U.S. reference.

It was a short walk (and an even shorter tram ride) to all the attractions along the riverside. And it was in a nice neighborhood; I'll show you below the view from our room and the spectacular view from the restaurant where we got to eat our included breakfast. And,  it was easy to get to a super-photogenic walkway along the lakeshore as well. (Photos from that stroll next time.) To get down to that walkway, you don't have to walk around the block, or even take a prosaic elevator. There was the cool funicular you see above on the right, instead!

we didn't have a lakeside view from our room, but this was nice anyway

not a bad view to accompany your eggs cooked to order...

But let's get back to that riverfront. 

Practically any google image search you perform for Lucerne (or Luzern) will get you lots of professionally-framed photos of the Reuss and the famous Kapellbrücke (or Chapel Bridge) which spans it. So rather than show you one of my attempts at this famous scene, I thought I'd share some off-to-the-side views of the iconic structure.

(You know that a landmark is the symbol of a city when you even get a cookie in its shape in your hotel room...see it at left!)

I took a picture that highlighted this tower, too...

...as well as this one from the bridge itself, looking upstream:

Looking back the other way, you can just see the bridge in the background, along with the handsome church that also dominated the view above. It's the Jesuit Church, one of two impressive houses of worship that we toured. More about the interiors in a later post.

You can see more of the bridge's span in this photo. The Reuss is a pretty wide river, this close to its mouth at the lake:

Both sides of the river are simply stuffed with attractions, like the church, and amenities, like the fine Italian restaurant where we hazarded an indoor dining experience (we figured even if we caught covid there, it wouldn't show up on our needed-to-go-home tests, which were happening the next morning; and they were negative).

After dinner one evening, Henry and I took a stroll further upstream and discovered yet another covered bridge that afforded some good positions for photos of the narrowing, but still formidable, Reuss...

What a beautiful city this is! And at an incredible location. Next time I'll go more wide-angle for you and show you some of the surrounding scenery, in particular the spectacular lake. Here's a teaser:

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*As most of you probably know, Switzerland has three well-known official languages: German, French, and Italian. It also has a fourth, that's not as well-known: Romansch. That explains the multi-language translations of the river we cruised on in my first post about this trip: Rhine/Rhein/Rijn/Rhin/Rain, or English/German/Dutch/French/Romansch. As a language nerd, it's not surprising I found Switzerland such an intriguing place!

Wordless Wednesday: easy to guess the next stop

 

Wordless Wednesday: aiming for the edge