Switzerland has long been on my list of places I needed to see. Earlier this year I saw somewhere that Lucerne was one of the most expensive cities. Working with people who have been recently, only backed that up. I heard how expensive it is more than once, and more than a couple times. I still had to go. For several years I have had visions of what it must be like. My visions always seem to be of a field in spring. Flowers in bloom, grass, nice and green, maybe some snow capping the Alps, and sunshine. I had no idea.

Let me tell you a little bit about Lucerne before I go into my POV of Lucerne. Lucerne is centrally located in Switzerland. It is in the German-speaking area of the country. It dates back to the Roman Empire and after the fall of the Roman Empire, in the 6th century, Germanic Alemannic peoples were influential at that time in this area. Since then, Lucerne has fought for its independence and eventually became a self-sufficient city. Lucerne is clean enough that you probably wouldn’t guess the age of the buildings.

Sights: There are two different foot bridges in the city. The Spreuer Bridge (pictured below), and the Chapel Bridge (not pictured). The Spreuer Bridge was built in 1408 and destroyed in a fire in 1566, then was rebuilt. The name comes from the German word - Spreu which was a cereal casing indigestible to humans but livestock could eat it. It was dumped into the river along with leaves. This was the only bridge where it was allowed to dump from.

The Church of St. Leodegar (pictured below) was originally built in 735 and the present structure was built in 1633. It was named for the city’s patron saint. The towers are surviving remnants from the earlier structure. It was built on the foundation of the Roman basilica which burnt in 1633.

The Lion Monument (not pictured and I am very sad about this), is a carving of a dying lion by Bertel Thorvaldsen. It was hewn by Lukas Ahorn in 1820-1821. It commemorates the massacred Swiss Guards in 1792 during the French Revolution. It is actually a heartbreaking sculpture.

When I booked Switzerland on our itinerary, everything was supposed to be different. We were supposed to have made our way down Germany and it wouldn’t be a long drive, and we would take the car ferry from Meersburg over to Switzerland. Reality was very different. We ended up having to stay in the northern part of Germany because our luggage was supposed to be to us by that day. We waited and waited for luggage that would never come in the northern part of Germany. By the day that we were to check into our hotel in Lucerne, we decided we had forfeit too much of our vacation. It was JD’s birthday. We had a romantic fondue dinner planned which we would never get to have because our dress clothes were in the suitcase that we did not have in our possession. We booked a hotel that looked nice and was practically on the lake, and had a great rate, and great reviews. We had not seen the sunshine our whole trip up to that morning, when it finally decided to come out during our road trip all the way from northern Germany, down to Switzerland. That is about a 9 hour drive in case you are wondering.

We left early in the morning. The sun was coming up and the day before we had hit our emotional bottom with frustrations. I was looking forward to getting out of the northern part of Germany and seeing so much more of that part of the world. I was feeling bad that JD would have to drive so long on his birthday. We decided all of the bad stuff we had been dealing with, would be left in Germany. Switzerland was going to be our turning point on this trip. We had to reset or this entire trip would be a bust. The people we spoke to in Belgium had started getting very nasty to us and we were all losing our patience with each other. They did not understand how I could be upset at them for handing our bag over to a company that did not have a contact phone number or email whatsoever. They just kept telling us that the company would call us when they were ready to deliver the bag. A phone call that never came. I made one last call before we got into Switzerland - a last ditch effort if you will to resolve this before entering a new country. I ended up in a yelling match with the lady in Belgium as she mocked me and my intelligence for being upset about this. I hung up the phone after ending the entire conversation with her knowing that I was not getting anywhere and I would have to dig further another day. Today was not that day.

We crossed the border into Switzerland. Our network/phone service had been spotty at best. Really bad in a lot of areas and apparently there is an underground joke about how bad service is in Germany. As we crossed the border, my phone almost instantly started displaying full bars and LTE. Almost like a big welcome hug, and the sun came out as well.

Driving through Basel and other parts of Switzerland to get to Lucerne, it was what you’d probably imagine. Green ground, blue skies (even with some cloud coverage), sunshine, clean roads, not overrun with homes, plenty of nice cars, and not any smog or pollution filling the air. I felt dirtier in my clothes I had been wearing for days at this point than the road we were driving on.

As we drove through town, it wasn’t the stressful city driving I have come to know in the U.S. We got closer to our hotel and the lake was in sight. We parked at our hotel and realized we would be staying right across this tiny street from the whole lake and had a couple mountain peaks in sight. We walked in and the lady at the front desk was so friendly and even genuinely laughed really hard when she told us to “have a great stay” and I replied “you too…err…have a great day, I mean, not stay.” They loaned us the outlet adapters we needed since ours were in the suitcase that we did not have. The lobby was clean and elegant. We got our stuff and found our room.

The room smelled clean. It was modern but not overly artsy. It had organic herb soaps and lotions in the bathroom, a towel warmer by the large shower, the toilet was actually in a water closet and not by the shower, and the room…the room was almost breathtaking. Floor to ceiling windows almost that spread almost the entire back wall, overlooking the lake and Alps. A door that you could open fully, or actually bend just so, so that you could open the top of the door like a window but the door would remain locked, a balcony that you could sit on and just watch the life move below you, or the lake which sits at the base of the Alps. It was something even my imagination couldn’t paint.

We sat there for a while taking it in before heading into the actual city to do some shopping, site-seeing, and get dinner. We knew we couldn’t do anything fancy for dinner without nicer clothes than what we were in. We walked around the city and since we had done all of our shopping, we were carrying bags of stuff. We came across a pizza place. Italian food is very common in Switzerland, and pizza is very popular. We walked in, we were not seated long before the owner (I assume) came out to greet us. He was dressed very nice in a fedora and vest, and yet not overly dressed that we felt out of place. He brought us both a complimentary champagne flute, and it was delicious. JD is pretty happy having pizza for his birthday dinner, or going somewhere fancy, it doesn’t matter so much to him. We both ordered our own pizzas that night. He got a version of Hawaiian and I got a carbonara pizza. It had an over easy-type egg on top. I wanted to try something very different that I never get back home. It was incredibly delicious.

After we finished our dinner, it was already getting dark and we knew we had over a mile to walk back to our hotel. We walked down by the lake for the full walk back. There were some parts that were darker than others, and no one around that you could see. We remained alert but we never felt in danger at any point. Even as locals passed us on their nightly run. It was a quiet walk that was almost relaxing.

That night I slept better than I had in months. It was as though the city itself massaged me to sleep. I slept through the night. I wasn’t worried about the luggage for the first time during our entire trip up to that point. I didn’t feel worried about much at all that night. We slept in for a bit and then got up to enjoy our breakfast from the hotel, which of course was delicious. After breakfast, we took our time and I took more pictures of the lake and the little bit of sunshine as the clouds rolled in. We decided to call about our luggage one more time. This was to the last known airport where the bag was to speak to their baggage claim company and see if they could tell us anything. Of course, they told us that it was to be delivered to northern Germany that day but they were showing the company tried to call both of our numbers. They didn’t. Our phones never rang. However, we knew the bag would be delivered and we now had some sort of info as to where its last whereabouts were. We packed up and headed towards Zürich.

Leaving Lucerne was difficult. It was the first part of our trip that almost resembled a vacation. I always tell people that traveling and vacations are not always the same thing. We moved very slowly before we checked out of our hotel that day. We took our time driving. It was back to dealing with our suitcase problems once we crossed the border. But first: Zürich.

As we got into Zürich, this city felt a little different than Lucerne. Not necessarily bad nor good. Just different. It actually felt older. It is still clean, but the feeling felt older and maybe more set in its ways if that makes sense. It was pretty busy while driving. We found parking eventually. We got out to walk around the city. We stopped at a little souvenir shop, which I always enjoy in Europe because they still have such a mom and pop feel to them, and so much of the stuff feels so authentic, even for touristy souvenirs. I collect snow globes from everywhere I go, and JD and I collect magnets from most everywhere we have been together. We spent a little while in the shop, and just walking the city before we decided to get on the road and head towards Neuschwanstein Castle back in Bavaria, Germany.

I will likely make Zürich more of a stop next time I am in that area. It has so much history of its own that there is plenty for any history buff to do and to get lost for a little while there. I have definitely come to find that you don’t really know any country until you have visited the North, the South, the East, and the West of it. Every country is so different from top to bottom and side to side. I didn’t get to the very south or the very west of Switzerland but I have already started to see the difference from city to city.

Packing List: Camera and accessories, maps, Swiss Franc, weather appropriate clothing like jackets, comfortable walking shoes, Types C and J power adapters

DO: Buy a Vignette before getting to the border when driving in from surrounding countries, buy chocolate from grocery stores/coops because you will save money, try the Italian food in Switzerland, be mindful of other people’s pictures, use crosswalks, wear comfortable clothing, wear comfortable shoes

DON’T: Yell or speak too loudly in public, crowd people, be rude, litter, trespass

In case you’re wondering what hotel we stayed in: Hotel Seeburg Luzern