Picture Perfect Lucerne

Today we’ve moved to our last city in Switzerland,  Lucerne, and it is soooooo pretty, I wish we were here for more than two days!  This is the first time I’ve travelled anywhere that looks exactly like the postcard pictures of it – I mean, everywhere we’ve been so far has been nice, but usually the postcard is the best picture possible, not the ordinary!

Because Lucerne is quite touristy due to its scenic setting, it was impossible to find really budget accommodations and we ended up booking at NH Hotel Luzern, which currently has a special weekend rate of 106 Swiss Francs per night.  It’s a three-star hotel so it’s a step up from the two-star Ibis and hostels we’ve been at so far, and we’re quite happy with our room, but I would have felt ripped off if we had paid their full rack rate of 195 Swiss Francs!  Apart from being bigger than the Ibis and having a nicer bathroom with plushier towels, there isn’t much that warrants it’s regular price.  I was also miffed to learn that they charge for Wi-Fi, at 10 Swiss Francs per hour!

After settling into our room, we headed out to check out a bit of the city, starting with their main shopping street, Hertensteinstrasse.  Halfway down the street, we decided to have dinner at an Italian restaurant that was quite busy.  Paul got a dish made up of three kinds of pasta (penne, tortellini, and linguine) and I got linguine with king prawns. The pasta was cooked perfectly, but the sauce in my dish was lacking in flavour (all I tasted was olive oil and lemon) and Paul only liked the linguine part of his dish.  Strike one for Lucerne!

Since it was still early, we walked off our dinner by going across the Kapellbrücke, a wooden bridge on Lake Lucerne built in 1333.  It is a landmark of the city, and is filled with 120 triangular paintings in the roof beams, depicting events from Lucerne’s history.  Since we couldn’t read the captions that were written in German, Paul decided to humour me by making up the story as we walked, telling a fascinating tale about evil ghouls (there were lots of pictures of skeletons) who came to take over the city – who knew he had such imagination!

We watched the sun set a bit and then headed back to the hotel, where I watched half the movie Faceoff in German.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, and I don’t remember most of the story, but it was sort of captivating to watch a movie you’ve seen in a language you don’t know.  Although we didn’t do very much, our first day in Lucerne has been very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to a strong finish for Switzerland