When we arrived in Luzern we had our usual walk to the hotel from the train station that involved one or two curses at the luggage for being so darn heavy. Overall, I have found it best to travel by train for several reasons, the number one reason being that airports are typically situated outside of the city center (at least a half hour away) while main train stations are at the heart of the city making it a quick hop, skip, and a jump to the hotel. Our hotel was not far at all from the train station and we quickly made our way over there. Our hotel was beautiful with a fabulous view of the main river, the Reuss, and all of the vibrant action happening across and below us.
Our first day we lolly-gagged and ate some ice cream whilst sitting along the river. The next few mornings we also found Coots (thanks Andy for telling me the name of these things because they're also in San Francisco, and a treasured memory!) and massive amounts of Swans. Unfortunately everybody feeds them, but what can you do.
On one of our following days since arriving to Luzern we went to their transport museum. At first we were very confused - we were greeted with a large outdoor area that appeared to be a huge playground, including a rock wall, boat races, practice road designs, etc., and we inquired wether this was a children's museum or what. They assured us it was appropriate for adults so we bought the exorbitant tickets hesitantly (~$80 each!!!) and hoped for the best since Mark's Mom had recommended the museum. We were not happy when we first walked in to a disappointing model railroad (especially after the one in the Deutches Museum in München). But after a while we found some pretty awesome things. Especially for Mark, a virtual train operator computer program...
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| The practice road design for kids. |
...and loads of trains. Although we had seen plenty of oude (Dutch for ancient) trains, these were still pretty awesome.
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| Swiss streetcars have a very narrow gauge. |
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| Underneath a train. |
Especially the snow-plow train.
They also had an amazing collection of various signs on the outside of the buildings. I would love this collection!
After the transport museum we went for a ride around the area. We found ourselves enjoying the water and afterwords venturing out further and making a flattened swiss franc (probably a mistake since it's about $2) with the fast-moving train. This was before we heard the foreboding sounds of a quickly approaching thunderstorm so we raced back to the city center!
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| You can rent bikes at the train station for free, or very little money. Can't remember. Many Swiss towns run their own bike rental system. I know in Zurich it's free. |
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| The train that flattened our Franc. It came and went VERY fast. |
On one of the next few days we took bikes out for a ride. We didn't have any particular destination in mind, but ended up following signs out to a city called Horw (in my American mind pronounced "whore" but I'm sure it's different). It was an amazing ride. At very first there was a huge hill...
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| Taking a break... |
...but then we found a nice, quiet bench to sit and enjoy some (rather crappy grocery store) lunch and grab some great snapshots.
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| Where we ate lunch. There's a small little cut-out you can see in the wall where there is a bench. Maybe two cars passed by the whole hour we sat there, but several people on bikes passed. |
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| The view. |
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| Another stopping point along the way. |
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| The city of Horw. |
When we made our way back home we then picked up some beers and enjoyed them along the Reuss River and watched some male ducks basically rape a female duck. We intervened a couple times, thinking it was wrong, but not too much. It was actually somewhat disturbing and something I'll remember forever.
The main bridge in Luzern, pictured here...
...was burnt down in 1993 for some reason and was rebuilt, but they have some of the old story-telling frames still up. Mark must have taken pictures on his phone because I swear we took pictures but I can't find them here.
And for fun, here's a picture of their anti-litter campaign and the fun they make of it! Hop-scotch!!
One of our last days we went to Mt. Pilatus, pictured here as seen from the city...
...but that will be another post because it is rather picture heavy!
