Arrived at our hostel at lunch time, and we couldn't check in until 2. So conveniently we had lunch outside to kill an hour. Then we had a drive around the city to check it out, it was really cool so we decided to head straight back then walk into the city.
While waiting to check in I got talking to a pommy guy named Adam. He was taking a 1 month trip around Eastern Europe, and stopping in Switzerland on the way. Also got talking to a yank, Josh. He actually studied in Christchurch for a year, so wasn't ignorant of the rest of the world. He was taking a 12 day holiday to visit Switzerland (from the USA).
(Adam, Josh, Le Fourgue and me)
So after we checked in the 5 of us walked into town. The first stop was the "Dying Lion". This is a famous statue (which I knew nothing about until Josh mentioned it to me) of a dying lion (funny that), that symbolises the Swiss mercenaries that died defending the king and that were guillotined during the French revolution. It was a very impressive statue.
After that we walked around some of the city, took the compulsory stop at the church (so many massive churches in Europe!) where a wedding was taking place... we tried not to get in any photos ;-)
Then we headed straight for the waterfront. The views on Lake Luzern were breathtaking. The mountain backdrop with the sailing ships on the lake were fantastic... except the fact that they were Swiss sailors (I'm bitter about America's Cup... grrr). It kind of reminded me of Queenstown. On one of the mountains you can even stay in the hotel up there... the views would be amasing!
We had a walk around the board walk... you could just feel the wealth of the locals oozing out. People were wearing very flash clothes and all made up like they had somewhere to be. I felt a bit like scum, all unshaven and wearing my ripped jeans... was fantastic :)
After walking for a bit we chilled out in the sun which was nice.
Next stop the old bridges in the city. It was pretty nice, wooden bridges with paintings in the ceiling. At one point all the church bells in the city were going off, it was pretty spectacular with a surround sound going throughout the city.
There was a music festival on, tonight was the last night. So after walking about for a couple of hours, we headed in to check out some music. One of the guys we saw playing was staying in the hostel the night before and Josh stayed up listening to him jam. So we checked out him for a bit, then checked out some of the other stages.
Eventually, we grabbed a few beers and sat down by the waterfront and chatted with the music in the background. After that we had a walk around the city by night which was very nice. The city was quite beautiful by night as well.
It wasn't a very late night and we were back at the hostel and in bed by midnight.
My overall impression of Lucerne was very nice. The kind of city you would want to take a girlfriend, or to just chill out on the waterfront, there was plenty of eye candy.
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