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!

Wilhelm Tell

I woke up and showered. They have holders for the shower head! One of my few gripes about the hostels in Greece was that you had to hold the shower head in one hand to get yourself wet. It was incredbily annoying. In Switzerland, that is not a problem, thank God. I packed up and left my big backpack until I came back for it before I left. I decided to walk down to the waterfront one last time. It was drizzling a little while I walked but not too much. The mountains were obscured by clouds (view from near train station piture 1). I am glad it wasn't like that when I arrived yesterday. I bought an almond cake thing and some orange juice for breakfast and ended up not finsishing it so I had for lunch on the train as well. I ate my breakfast in a bus shelter on the lakefront beause all the benches were wet. Haha, that must have been a sight to see. I hopped on the scenic train up to Fluelen which is on the end of Lake Lucerne (picture 2). There are four scenic train rides in Switzerland and this is one of them. The train ride is called the William Tell Express because this was the area in Switzerland he supposedly came from. William Tell is a folk hero for the Swiss like Daniel Boone is for Americans. The train ride was quite scenic and actually passed through a tunnel that was 10 miles long. Geez. You couldn't totally make out all the mountains because of clouds but I saw enough to get a pretty good idea (picture 3). There were lots of valleys and I could watch the architecture change from Italian to German influenced. The train ride took about 1.5 hours.

I arrived in Fluelen and decided to call a hostel in Lucerne. I called the hostel and got a reservation but accidently left the Rick Steves Switzerland on the garbage can. I walked around trying to figure out where to buy tickets for the ferry and when the ferry left. This was easier said than done because everything was in German. I finally realized I didn't have the book and found that it was gone. Huge, big, large, bummer. I was pretty depressed about that. It was from the Kensington Library which makes me feel bad because they are never getting it back now. Oh well. I bought a ferry ticket to get across the lake. It was kind of expensive but I figured that I would probably never be able to do it again. The boat had restaurant like seating inside and benches outside. I sat outside the whole time (picture 4). That was pretty cold especially since I was so used to eighty degrees and sun in Greece (it was windy, fifty, and cloudy). I survived and looked at the scenery. The boat trip was 3 hours long so I looked at the scenery and read more of The Lost World. Super good book. The clouds were hanging low in some places and not in others (picture 5). I got to Luzern (the way they spell it here) and started to walk to my hostel. On the way, a young guy asked if I needed help. That was nice of him. He said that he went to school near the hostel and backpacks would always walk by it looking lost.

My hostel is ok. One of the guys in my room is from Canada and another is from Beijing but speaks English fluently. I was hungry so I used my Let's Go (thanks Amy) and ate at a, what else, kebab restaurant. I swear, I can't escape them. I got a Hawaiian kebab. It had ham, chicken, pineapple, and lettuce and tomato with some amazing sauce. Eating it was messy but delicious. I walked around Luzern a little bit after that. I walked along the river that cuts the town in two. I walked up one side and down the other. There were not that many people walking around. I saw the famous wooden bridge (picture 6). Very cool. I also saw the awesome fescoed walls of the houses (they painted the outside of teh buildings). The architecture just makes me want to smile (picture 7). Gingerbread houses or whatever. I went back to the hostel and went online. I bought a ticket for Sunday night to Amsterdam so it looks like I am going there. Haha. No turning back now I guess. I finished reading The Lost World. I am going to Jim's tomorrow.

Bye!