Day 14: Luzern

It was somewhat clear for the first hour or two this morning. We could see the peak of Pilatus clearly. Clouds moved in about 2hrs after we woke up. So we were glad that we did not try to go up Pilatus or Titlis. Instead we spent our time in Luzern museums and art galleries. We went to the Panorama, the Lion Monument, the Glacier Garden, the Alpineum, and the Rosengart Collection.

Jeff woke up around 7am, and woke Mary up at 7:30 because he was freaking out about where our Day 12 blog post went. We eventually found out that Blogger has been having some issues, and temporarily removed some of the blog posts from Wednesday/Thursday of this week. We headed down and had breakfast (yogurt & cereal). We purchased 50 bags of tea for 1fr yesterday, so we had some tea with breakfast.

After breakfast, we looked into what we wanted to do for the day. We checked out the webcams for Titlis, and decided that the clouds were too thick and it probably wouldn’t be worth it to go up. So we spent the day seeing things around Luzern.

First we headed over to the Panorama. This was a circular building with a 10 meter high mural all around the outer wall depicting the incident in the “Franco-Prussian War when the defeated French forces of General Charles Bourbaki fled out of France into Switzerland to avoid annihilation by the Germans. The starving and disoriented French were welcomed by the Switzerland army and welcomed into homes to recuperate from the Winter. Celebrated as one of the finest acts of humanitarian courage in Swiss history” (Frommers Switzerland).

Second, we visited the Lion Monument. This monument commemorates the Swiss guard that protected Marie Antoinette when the palace in France was stormed. They fought to the death to protect her.

Third, we visited the Glacier Garden. This was a large area covered by a canvas tent that showed the exposed rock that was underlying the Luzern area. There were a number of large pot holes, and the Garden served as a way to demonstrate various signs the glaciers had once covered the area: striations in the rock, pot holes, and erratics.

Pot hole:

Fourth, we went to the Alpineum. This was clearly trying to be similar to the Panorama, but wasn’t. It consisted of a few rooms with large murals depicting what the view was like from the top of some of the highest mountains in Switzerland. We are hoping to make it to the top of the Jungfrau, so hopefully we will be able to enjoy a view similar to the one we saw in this building – snow and ice covered mountain peaks for as far as the eye can see.

Finally, we visited a few churches that we hadn't been inside yet. The first one was St. Leodegar. This was pretty impressive inside, and the organ at the back was huge.

The second church was closed to visitors for the day, but we saw the exterior. This was the church that Wagner was married in (for one of his wives, not sure which one). St. MatthewKirche:

Our last visit was to the wooden bridge crossing the lake. This wooden bridge was originally built in 1333 and has 122 paintings inside. It was damaged by fire in 1993, and 2/3 of the paintings were damaged. You aren't supposed to smoke while crossing it, but the man in front of us did anyway, and it wasn't very pleasant to breath behind him. Had we known how to tell him not to smoke on the bridge in German, I'm sure we would have. (Mary: Although, he was a pretty large man....)

Afterwards went into several souvenir shops and Mary was able to find someone who sold Swiss made cuckoo clocks. Unfortunately, the person who owned the store did not seem to know what they were talking about. They actually put themselves off as desperate to make a sale. Long story short Mary did not buy a cuckoo clock.

On our way towards the Rosengart collection we stopped off at a huge souvenir shop. At this shop we picked up two free swiss teaspoons. The teaspoons were free because we had a free city guide from the shop, on one page there was a page advertising the free spoons if you brought in the page.

From there we walked over to a knife shop that gave out free chains if you bought a knife and had the same city guide. We both bought a knife. Mary bought a small little simple knife with a small knife, nail file, screw driver/bottle opener, scissors, pick and tweezers. Jeff bought a larger “Trailmaster” knife. Jeff’s knife has a screwdriver, bottle opener, can opener, saw, knife blade, pick, and tweezers. There is no cork screw, but it is likely better that way because Jeff does not like basic corkscrews.

We made it to the Rosengart Collection gallery just before it started to rain buckets on us. The museum had lots of Picasso and some Impressionist work. The impressionist paintings were the best. Picasso was interesting. Both Jeff and Mary find it difficult to connect with a lot of Picasso’s work. Mary especially, since he seemed to like painting a lot of nude women with their body parts in all the wrong places.

After spending close to one hour in the Rosengart Gallery we headed to a chocolate place that also had an advert for a free truffle. Unfortunately, it was extremely busy with tour busses. We decided on buying dessert instead. We bought a little chocolate truffle cake.

We made it back at 4:30 and were fairly wet. Nothing important got soaked through. At 5:15 we made pasta and salad for dinner. It was good. We poured wine to have with dinner. Jeff drank most of his, but Mary barely touched it during dinner. When dinner was over Jeff started to wash dishes even though Mary wanted to “sit and relax and enjoy the wine”. Jeff had very little left so he did dishes.

Tomorrow we head to Solothurn. Hopefully it isn’t another wet travel day!

(Mostly written by Jeff)