Saturday August 1, 2015
and Sunday August 2, 2015
USA to Luzern
Next
Monday August 3, 2015
Luzern, Pilatus, and
Grenoble
After a number of changes, my final 'free' flight from American was
pretty good, at least for a 'free' flight - SFO to Chicago; 2 hour
layover at ORD; ORD to Heathrow; 4 hour
layover in Heathrow; Heathrow to Zurich. Leave SFO at 9:20am
Saturday, arrive
Zurich 3pm Sunday. Kent was flying through Chicago as well on
United so we were supposed to get an hour together to drink beer.
Kent's flight was nearly an hour late, so we ended up seeing each other
for all of 7 minutes before I had to head back to the other side of the
airport to catch my flight to London.
My backpack and I both made it to Zurich without incident, so I bought
my half fare card and a ticket to Luzern. Paul and Kent both
recommended Luzern and I hadn't seen it before. Months prior to
my arrival I used Tripadvisor to find
a room with a shared bath at the Tourist Hotel Lucerne for
only 60 CHF per night, less than half what any other room within a few
miles of central Luzern would have cost.
17:33
A very tired tourist arrives in Luzern
Kapellbrücke / Chapel Bridge
18:28
Tourist Hotel Lucerne
18:41
I made my way up to the city walls.
18:42
18:44
19:02
The famous lion of Luzern
19:02
19:07
The poor lion of Luzern is mobbed by endless hordes of busloads of
tourists.
19:24
19:24
19:30
18:33
19:53
No giraffes allowed in this garage.
19:56
Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) burned to the water in 1993 when a boat caught fire and
the fire spread to the bridge.
It got better, as Monty Python would say (it was rebuilt).
19:58
19:59
Kapellbrücke
20:31
Luzern was a bit of a disappointment.
The views of the lake, river, and bridges were fine, but without a stellar museum cities don't do much for me.
I arrived too late to see the Picassos at the Rosengart museum, and I
wouldn't have time to see it the next morning unless I skipped Pilatus.
Picasso doesn't so much for me so it wasn't in the cards.
After wandering the town for a few hours, it didn't take too long to
settle on Rick Steves' recommended Opus wine bar / restaturant.
While dining and enjoying the gorgeous view of Kapellbrücke I started to relax and my vacation really started.
After dinner I walked across Kapellbrücke before going to bed.
