NB: This was my first attempt at using the video feature on my relatively basic camera and putting it on the blog. Hopefully it will play correctly.
The swans are typically fed tons of bread by tourists, so it surprised us to see swans that weren't so lucky actually searching for food. Here's one Swan's adventure.
Here's what happens when you feed the swans...
Lucerne (Luzern), Switzerland has been our location to relax a bit on our whirlwind tour of Europe. We both read several books, walked around town, saw a few of the sites and shopped. I bought some pretty cool Christmas gifts to bring back to the US.
Here are a few photos. The first one is Chuck reading his latest book while sitting in the shade (our balcony still had some sunshine). The second one is of a second covered pedestrian bridge. You can see how clear the water is in the last picture. There are swans all over the place in Lucerne. Even though the swan is the national bird in Denmark, I've seen more swans here!
When I planned the 3 week trip around Europe several months ago, I thought we might need a break from walking and sightseeing, so I planned on spending about a week in Lucerne, Switzerland. We are staying at the Grand Hotel National in a junior suite overlooking the Lake for 4 nights and then 1 night on top of Mt. Pilatus.
Today we took a quick 1 hour drive to Interlaken, which was the first place opened up to tourism in Switzerland. They are working on constructing a tunnel so I'm sure the drive will be much smoother and little less stressful in the future. We were pretty high up in some mountains with very little earth on the passenger side of the car. Good thing I took my Dramamine!
Interlaken is very pretty. It's a little tourist town located between two lakes. The view is beautiful with mountains and even one snow covered. We shopped a bit and then drove back to Lucerne, stopping a few times along the way to eat a late lunch and take pictures.
Here are a few pictures. The first one is of the mountains surrounding Interlaken. The second one is one of the lakes near Interlaken. The water is so turquoisy blue.
This morning we drove from Munich down to Lucerne (Luzern), Switzerland. It was just over 4 hours and the roads were quite good. The highways or expressways in Europe are well kept and smooth. For the summer season, I expected a lot of construction and we only saw a little bit of it. And, the construction work doesn’t back up traffic for miles and miles like in the Midwest.
We needed to buy a vignette or highway toll sticker for the car when we entered Switzerland. We also had to buy one when we entered the Czech Republic and Austria; although, in Austria we stopped to buy one (obviously at the wrong spot) and were told we didn’t need one. So when we arrived in Vienna, we asked the concierge and quickly got one affixed to the windshield.
The drive into Switzerland is beautiful. We were winding around a few mountains, but also went under many in some pretty long tunnels. So far, the longest tunnel we’ve been in has been 6.6 km (4 miles). That tunnel kept on going. Imagine what would happen if you got stuck under there!
We arrived in Lucerne just after noon. I could probably live here forever…if I was independently wealthy, but that’s a minor detail. As a reference a grilled chicken breast (with no side dishes is $24USD / 24 Swiss Francs and a diet coke is $6USD / 6 Swiss Francs). I like the conversion factor in Switzerland. It seems like I’ve been doing non-stop math for the past 4 months!
Below is the famous walking bridge and tower in Lucerne.
