Day 2: The Beauty & History of Luzern
A Guided Tour
After a nice breakfast getting to know more of our tour members, we joined up outside the hotel for our morning walking tour of Luzern. Our guide, Claudia, was awesome, as is typical of Rick’s guides. She was very personable, informative and had a wittiness about her that we really enjoyed. We saw the local highlights like the Chapel Bridge and the Chaff Bridge (or Spreuerbrücke, the oldest bridge in Switzerland). The Chapel Bridge was built in 1333 and is adorned with 120 captioned paintings in its peaks which were added in the 1500s. A fire in 1993 nearly destroyed the entire bridge, which has since been restored. We were thankful for the restoration and the opportunity to see this beautiful structure. |
We toured the riverfront area, including the historic and grand white Jesuit church. Pam and I had peeked inside the day before, but it was great to get a deeper history lesson about the church and to take a closer look. Another highlight of the tour included a trip to the Carnival section of town where we saw the fountain where locals always kick off the pre-Lenten Carnival season wearing masks that allow revelers to anonymously release their inhibitions and party before the Easter season begins (a lot like U.S. Mardi Gras). In that same section of town, Claudia showed us a pub where they perform plays on the roof. I'd love to see that! Thanks, Claudia, for the really interesting local history and culture!
Chocolate Tasting
After the main part of our tour, it was time for our chocolate tasting stop. This was a much anticipated stop on the tour for many of us! Since the chocolate shop could only handle half of our group at one time, we broke into two groups for our trip to the chocolatier. We went with the first group, so we could be done earlier and get to our next excursion. At Max Chocolatier, we learned about the process used by the Swiss to make their famous chocolate. Of course, like many inventions, it was an accident that they had over-stirred a batch and found that it got extra creamy by doing so--another brilliant mistake in history that led to excellence! And a delicious one! During our visit, we got to taste a number of the chocolates (definitely delicious!), and we learned how they do all the chocolate making in their little shop. Everything is done by hand, and they order in the best international ingredients not available in Switzerland. This particular chocolatier family built the shop as a tribute to their son with Down syndrome, and they stamp each chocolate with an X symbolizing the X chromosome unique to Down. What a great tribute to their son! |
Mount Rigi
After our chocolate tasting, the rest of the day was ours to explore Luzern destinations of our choice. We had already ascended Pilatus (and loved it), so we decided to go up the other main peak near town--Mount Rigi. Dave and Susan, a couple from California, decided to join us. We walked the five minute trip to the boat landing near the train station and bought round trip tickets that included the boat ride to Vitznau, the cog train to the top of Mt. Rigi, the cog train back down to connect to the gondola in Wiggins and finally, the boat ride back to Luzern. Although this trip included a number of connections, we were already pretty comfortable navigating the local transportation systems, so we felt good about our adventure. We were hoping the trip would be worth it since we’d already visited Pilatus, and we were not disappointed. It was spectacular. The views were equally as beautiful as those from Pilatus, but much different. The views from Rigi provided a much richer mix of greens and mountains, which we love, and the ride up was much more dramatic as well! The sights were beautiful and even though it was near record heat, we had a great time. We really enjoyed having Dave and Susan with us, and we enjoyed getting to know them better. To “cap” off the day, I went to the mall below the train station to buy a hat (sorry--dad joke). It’s only day two, and my head is already getting sunburned! |
Stunning Mount Rigi
While different than Mount Pilatus, Mount Rigi was equally stunning--maybe even more so. The rich greens mixed in with the mountains and endless views were definitely worth the trip up to the peak.
While different than Mount Pilatus, Mount Rigi was equally stunning--maybe even more so. The rich greens mixed in with the mountains and endless views were definitely worth the trip up to the peak.