A Day in Lucerne

 Wednesday - March 23, 2022

Today we wake up and head down for breakfast before embarking on our tour of Lucerne.  It was...not the best.  Quite frankly, it was better than most included breakfasts in American hotels, but we've gotten used to fancier breakfasts in Europe, so we've been spoiled.  It still had all the necessities - various breads, spreads, yogurts, pastries, hard boiled eggs and some meats.  It's a lot more than I would have available for breakfast at home!  There was plenty of food to fill up - even in the absence of fancy espresso machines or an omelet bar.  We all got on the bus after breakfast to start our day,  The first place we went to was the Jesuit Church along the river, a baroque building that started construction in 1666.  It was gorgeous inside, and it's conveniently located just steps from the Chapel Bridge.

There are numerous bridges connecting the two sides of town, but Chapel Bridge is the most famous.  

Chapel bridge was built in 1365 and is the oldest surviving truss bridge in the world.  It almost burned down in 1993, which destroyed a lot of original paintings that were hundreds of years old - but the bridge was rebuilt and the paintings restored the next year.  The tower in the picture below pre-dates the bridge by 30 years.  It's been used to hold artillery, as a prison, torture chamber, treasury, and municipal archive.  

I loved the bridge!  I insisted on returning to it later in the day - but it's not just useful to make your way across the river - it's a lovely place for a stroll to meander through with lots of art to enjoy.  It's also a fun place to people watch.

We continued our city tour and lordy, I've never seen so many luxury watch stores in my LIFE.  Do people even still wear watches?!  I feel like everyone either wears a smart watch or they just check the time using their phone.  Watches I find, are no longer a gauge of someone's income since everyone just has a smart watch with a rubber band on their wrists now.  So how do these stores stay in business?

Another thing there's an abundance of?  Chocolate 😍😍😍

So. Much. Chocolate.  It makes my heart sing.  And my mouth water  And my pants tight.  I discovered Laderach in Lucerne.  Do we have one in South Coast Plaza?  Yes.  Did I know this before I lugged pounds of chocolate home from Switzerland?  Nope. 😑  But no matter - their chocolates are amazing!  While I was in the store, I saw so many locals stop in for a few truffles or little bars - like this is something they regularly do - just a part of their daily routine - to stop at a chocolate shop for a bite of super fancy bougie amazeballs chocolate.  

I purchased many boxes and bags of chocolate - not just for me though - for my friends at home too.  Also, I went to the market (everyone in our tour went there too!) since our tour manager told us to go - they literally had a wall of chocolate that I wish I took a photo of.  She told us to buy Frey chocolates at the market - they are local only and never exported and of amazing quality.  No lies detected my friends.  Frey was hella cheap, and SO GOOD.  I thought I bought a ton.  I did not buy enough (sob).  It was marginally more expensive than Kit Kats and Hersheys, but it completely blows them out of the water.  I can't pick my favorite, but the ones with whole hazelnuts in the chocolate bar was mind blowing. 

After time spent purchasing much chocolate (I was getting a reputation as someone who just threw money at things.  Accurate), we went to Bachmann for a break before we went to Mount Pilatus.  We found some tables, comfortable seats, and drank our coffees while we played on our phones.  It's a measure of how much I was suffering from stick shock that when I heard that our 3 coffees cost 30 CHF (she said 13, but her Engrish was not so good so I thought she said 30), I wordlessly handed my credit card over thinking, oh well, I guess coffees here just cost $10 a pop 😂😭.  It wasn't until I was handed my receipt that I realized that our coffees only cost a little over $4, not $10 🤦.  Woohoo!

After we refreshed ourselves, we met up with the rest of our group going to Pilatus and climbed onto our bus.  It wasn't far - we drove through some residential neighborhoods to reach the gondola.

judgy dragon guarding the gondolas

Like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, these do not stop - you gotta just climb in as the gondolas swing by.  They do slow down a lot once they reach the station so people can disembark and a new group can climb in - but they do not stop moving.  The scenery from the gondola was gorgeous!  As we climbed in elevation we start seeing snow.  

There was a station in between about halfway up  - there's an alpine slide you can take there.  We were there too early in the season, but it looked like so much fun!  You then board another gondola - a big one everyone had to cram into  - to head all the way to the peak of Pilatus  

this is the big gondola we all had to cram into

My favorite part of Mt Pilatus?  The Dragon Trail!  We couldn't go all the way through since there was still snow and ice in the mountains - but it was so cool - just caves with phenomenal views!  The people of Lucerne used to believe there were dragons who lived in the mountains - this is how the trail got its name.  There are myths and everything!  

There's a resort up here, and the visitor's center was really nice!  It was very modern, spacious and clean.  There was a coffee bar in there, some fast food, and if you go up the stairs, there was a cafeteria that we ate lunch in.  The food was expensive (like everything else in Switzerland), but it was fine - actually a little better than expected since I had very low expectations.

it was warm enough that the locals brought their own chairs up the mountain so they could get some sun.

We found some seats that were pretty isolated from the others and sat down to eat.  My parents got pasta...in Switzerland...but I got a bratwurst.  One of them got marinara and the other got meat sauce and they mixed the two since they both only wanted a little bit of meat.  Not the best pasta I've ever had, but it was decent.  The bratwurst was fine - not the best wurst I had, but not bad for cafeteria food. 

After eating we wandered around the platform to take in the views before heading back down the mountain.

this is the mid-way point where we get out of the big gondola to get into small individual ones.  See the alpine slide?  Doesn't that look super fun?

Once we return to our hotel, I decide it's time to dig into my stash of chocolate.  

class photo!

We lazed around for a few hours - then decided to go grab food.  I wasn't in a mood for a sit down restaurant.  I just wanted to grab some snacks at the market, watch TV, and relax.  Because we had a late lunch though, we weren't hungry yet, so we walked along the lake heading towards town and watched how the Swiss lived.  It seemed like the whole town was out by the lake - there were people jogging, walking, playing in the playgrounds, there were games of tennis and basketball that we walked by...it was lovely to see people just hanging out alongside the lake.

We ran into more people from our group at the market - it seems like everyone had the same idea - we were already tired from touring and no one wanted a sit down dinner - everyone was buying salads and sandwiches and bread to just eat in their rooms 😂.  

I grabbed a curry wrap (meh) and a salmon sandwich (surprisingly really good!) while my parents grabbed sandwiches and sushi rolls from the deli section and we took the bus back to our hotel.  We ended our night watching TV by streaming from our roku, admiring the lake from the balcony, eating tons of chocolate (me), and packing up since we move hotels the next day.