Lovely, Lovely Lucerne

I woke up in Lucerne but decided to skip the shower. I didn't feel like it. I packed my backpack and left at the hostel to get later. I did not have a guidebook to show me where to walk but I did have a map from the TI which had a route to walk. I decided to follow that route. First, I walked from my hostel to the train station. This was a 15 minute walk along the lakefront (in the short time I was in Lucerne, I walked this stretch six times I think). I got to the train station and bought a similar loaf of bread but some kind of coffee to drink for breakfast from the grocery store in the station. I ate it at the river looking at the really famous bridge (picture 1). It was delicious. I am not a huge coffee fan but this drink was nice. I finished my breakfast and started the walk. I got to another bridge across the river when I saw a marching band getting ready to march. That was strange so I waited for them to start. It turns out that there was a full fledged parade. The marching band lead and then there were kids dressed in friar's robes throwing flowers (picture 2 and 3). They were followed by a ton of just normal people walking. Some priests and other guys dressed in crazy costumes followed. I had no idea what was going on but it was really cool. (It turns out that it was Corpus Christi Day and the Catholic cantons, states, of Switzerland take the day off. Jim told me all this later.)

I walked around the town taking more pictures of the awesome buildings. I walked up to the old city walls. You can walk along the top of them (picture 4) and actually climb one of the towers. That was pretty cool. The towers all had very tall spires (like everything here). It was still very hazy or cloudy or whatever so you couldn't really see much. I walked down from the city walls back into the old town (alstadt). I passed by a ton of stores that were all closed which did not make much sense to me until Jim revealed the information to me later. It was kind of like a ghost town. I don't know where everyone went to. No matter. The houses all had frescoed walls. Some had family trees (picture 5) and some had flames. Most just had floral designs of some kind. They were awesome. There were three famous squares and I saw all of them. From there it was along a long street, with all the Swiss flags hanging above it, to the Lion Monument (picture 6). This is a giant, crying lion cut into the rock wall. It was made in honor of the Swiss soldiers that died defending Louis XVI during the French Revolution. It is a very sad monument. It is also pretty big. The Lion is about 6 meters long by three meters high. I met a group of students from Utah colleges. They had to leave right away but the little I talked to them, they were nice. I walked by a bunch of souvenir shops on my way to the main cathedral. The main cathedral is super cool. I did not think that the Swiss had nice churches but I think everyone in Europe does so there you have it. The two side altars were spectaular with their gold leaf and little statues (picture 7). The church was extremely quiet on the inside.

My last stop on the whirlwind tour of Lucerne was the Rosengart Collection. This is an art museum which has lots of Picasso and Paul Klee. There were also a couple paintings by some noteworthy artists like Monet, Signac, Seurat, etc (those are my three favorite painters along with Van Gogh). I did not have a lot of time left (I wanted to catch the 1 pm train) so I kind of went quickly through but that was ok. I liked the Signac quite a bit. I pretty much ran back over to my hostel and then to the train station to get the train. I had five minutes to spare so I grabbed a hot dog for lunch. I haven't had one of those in forever. The train ride was uneventful.

I got to Bern and rode the tram to Ostring. I called my Uncle Jim and he picked me up and dropped me off at his apartment. It is so nice of him and Francoise to let me stay here for a couple days. Their apartment is really nice and I like all the paintings they have up on the walls. Jim turned on baseball for me. I missed baseball a lot. I used the internet to resolve a price disparity on my ticket to Amsterdam and then got my stuff organized. Francoise came home from work and the two of us went grocery shopping together. It was an odd couple since she is muchhhh shorter than me. It reminded me of grocery shopping with my mom (pushing the cart and packing the groceries for her). We came back to the apartment and just kind of hung out. I showed Francoise my blog and we talked about where I had been. She remembered the restaurant, Chartier, that I went to and my mom visited back in the day.

Jim came home and we talked and then had fondue for dinner. Fondue!!! Just cheese in a pot with dipped bread and it was tasty. We also had salad. It was a wonderful dinner. I feel so spoiled, fondue and clean clothes, this is the life (Francoise washed my clothes for me). I love clean clothes. They smell so good. We also had some strawberry cake thing for dessert. Jim and I went for a walk to the Paul Klee Center which is a modern art gallery built into some hills near their apartment. Weird but cool. It was nice to walk and talk. It is amazing how little I know about some of my relatives. We came back and I updated my blog a little. I found The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck in Ian's bookcase so I started to read it. It is a pretty good book. Then I went to bed. Again, it is so nice to have a place to stay for free that is with really nice people.

Auf Wiedersehen!