Gordon's Grand Adventure: On to Lucerne!

or...Luzern...in Helvetica type, as Helvetic is Swiss for...uh, well, Swiss....much more appropriate!

We took the train from Zermatt, the trains are very nice, with tables so we could have lunch and do some work as we rode. It's hard to stop looking at the scenery though, and I'm glad we were able to spot a few interesting animals...Buffalo at one point and yaks at another, sorry they went past too quickly for photo documentation! We also saw lots and lots of cows. There were many farms, and what I believe were some vineyards...

Terraced farming The Alps

The train ride was about 3 1/2 hours, and we made it to Lucerne by around 1pm. We went to the hotel, Hotel Central Luzern, and they were kind enough to let us check in early. We had a wander around the olde town and across the bridges.

Hey look it's us!! A street in the Olde Town

We came back to the hotel for an afternoon of work, and then went out to dinner. Walking back was beautiful crossing the river.

On Tuesday it was rainy in the morning, so we went to the Swiss Museum of Transport, since Mario is a HUGE fan! We were hoping for a lot of cars, but found instead more on flight instead. Apparently we missed a huge part of the museum, because I was distracted by the SWISS CHOCOLATE ADVENTURE!! Which we certainly had to explore. It was actually a ride similar to one I've been on at Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. A very interesting process involving crushing the cocoa into a very fine powder before liquifying it. Now I need to go back to Hershey and compare notes!!

Once we came out of the museum the weather had cleared a bit, so we walked to the Lion monument, a tribute to the Swiss Guards who died in the Storming of the Tuileries in Paris in 1792.

After the monument we walked back to the center of town and got onto the Lucerne City Train. It was a great way to see the city and learn about the different areas. I especially loved the Lucerne Gate in front of the Railway station from both sides!