Lucerne

Conquered on 27/03/2005 to 28/03/2005

Lucerne is considered one of the bigger cities of Switzerland. Note, not a town, a city. We had originally planned to do our shopping here, before hitting Zurich and flying back.

Murphy's Law: Nothing ever goes according to plans.

We hit Lucerne on a Saturday. That was fine. But we hit Lucerne on Easter Saturday. That was not fine. Lets put it this way, to the Europeans, Easter Weekend is equivalent to our Lunar New Year in Singapore. So EVERYTHING was closed. Well, almost everything, McDonald's was open. Imagine our pain when we got there, all hyped to do some shopping, only to have our spirits dampen by the wet weather and closed shops. This was our 2nd major problem in Switzerland. Another decision to be made: either waste 1 more day here, or change the hotel plans and move on. We intended 3 days here, and only 1 in Zurich. After an emergency Musketeer meeting, it was decided. We'll throw 1 day of Lucerne away, and move to Zurich early, giving us the Monday to do shopping instead. All these were done after we checked into our hotel.

^ Our hotel room ^

Since we left Interlaken early that day, and skipped JungFrau, we were in Lucerne just before lunch. After changing our plans, we decided to do the city sightseeing today, and probably hopping to Mount Rigi the next day afternoon, before moving onto Zurich. Now for the city sightseeing...

^ the famous Chapel Bridge of Lucerne ^

^ Mr Ng and Mr Yu ^

^ Some river side views. See how gloomy it is? ^

^ Couldn't resist the ducks and swans ^

^ City battlements and the Lion Monument ^

^ Onto the battlement's fortifications ^

^ View of the city from the battlements ^

^ 3 of us at the Lion Monument ^

After a day's sightseeing, on bus and on foot, we were all tired. Since it was one of our last few days in Switzerland, we decided we would want to try both the cheese fondue and chocolate fondue. As I promised to explain, the cheese fondue basically meant melted cheese(3 types as the owner told us) in a pot, and small pieces of bread. Dip the bread in the molten cheese, and eat. For the chocolate fondue, it's melted chocolate in the pot, and fruits dipped into the chocolate. Here was our first major culinary mistake. We ordered 3 sets of cheese fondue, and a set of chocolate fondue. The waitress stared at us wide eyed, and repeated "3" to us with her fingers. We nodded. Why didn't we pay attention to that hint? When it came, and by the end of dinner, we were so sick of cheese and bread that we swore off eating bread with cheese even back in Singapore. The chocolate fondue, was however, delicious.

^ Cheese fondue, and me getting quite sick of it ^

^ Chocolate fondue, and Allan already giving up on cheese, hitting the chocolate ^

After an over cheesy meal, we started to make our way back to the hotel by bus, and had a good night's rest. The next day, we headed out to Mount Rigi. We had a disagreement here to hit Mount Rigi or not. I wanted to go because we missed Jungfrau, and well, there wasn't anything much open in town. Allan thought it was a waste of time. So we looked to Weili for the tie breaker, and he voted for Rigi. So off we went to another mountain, the Queen of Mountains! Before we took the cog rail up the mountain, we had to take a lake cruise first... That was another reason why I wanted to go Rigi! =)

^ Pictures of the cruise ^

^ View at the top of Rigi ^

^ Another view from the top ^

^ Lunch before heading back ^

After Mount Rigi in the morning, we quickly checked out of our hotel, and made our way to Zurich, our first and last city of the trip!