Lovin' Luzern

As I start this blog entry, I am reminded once again how extremely blessed we are with this wonderful opportunity to live in Europe.  I know that several of my friends read this blog, and I would never want it to sound like I'm boasting about what we are doing here.  Before we left, I was asked by several of them to share our feelings and pictures about our experiences here.  I also am using this blog as both a journal and a scrapbook so what I write is mainly for us and our family to be able to remember our time here on "the continent".

DJ took Friday, April 1st, off!  We decided to re-visit Luzern (Lucerne in French).  When we were there in 2008, it was in February, and the weather was overcast and gloomy.  Oh, my, are we glad we went back!  We couldn't have chosen a better weekend.  We were reminded what a quick drive it is and have vowed that we will being taking several more day trips back that way on Saturdays or one-day holidays.  We are feeling like our time here is quickly disappearing.  April 1 marked 9 months from DJ's original contract date---one-fourth of our time, unless it gets extended another year or two.  We are reminded in a lot of ways that we haven't accomplished 1/4 of what we came here to do---that applies to travel as well.

Drive time of 1 hr. 10 minutes + nice room at the Radisson on Lake Luzern (no, we didn't pay extra for a room with a view) + two sets of healthy legs to do a lot of walking + two people who love each other AND Europe = ONE FABULOUS GET-AWAY!

Friday - After our drive down to Luzern and finding our hotel AND PARKING, which is almost always an adventure, even with a GPS,  we headed by foot over the bridge into what they call "old town" and found a wonderful restaurant on the River Reuss.  The weather was so nice that we could eat outside, which added to the ambiance of the whole thing. 



We ate at one of these cafes on the banks of the river--the one just to the right of the red flag.



The food was incredible, and so was the view:



The Chapel Bridge was originally built in the first half of the 14th century.

 We spent a large part of the afternoon walking, taking pictures, and falling in love with Luzern all over again!  So without a lot of wordiness, here are some of my favorites---churches; architectural elements; a handful of the beautiful murals painted on their buildings; doors; part of the old city wall; fountains; and one of my new favorites, lamp posts:

Jesuit Church





At the western edge of Old Town is Spreuerbrucke.  This wooden covered bridge spans the Reuss and was built in 1408.  The bridge's roof is lined with panels painted by Kaspar Meglinger in 1626-35, depicting the Dance of Death.



At Kapellplatz, this fountain is crowned by a figure of Fritschi, a legendary character associated with spring and joy.



And as beautiful as it all was, it couldn't beat this:



Somewhere in our meandering we stopped for a small cone of homemade ice cream and bought me some new sunglasses, and then found our way back to our hotel---we're so old, we wanted to put our feet up for a while.  These are a few things we saw on the way back to the hotel:



The steeples of Hof Church where we took a picture of us in 2008---see below.

Us in 2008---wait a minute, the sky looks blue, but I promise we couldn't see across the lake.



The huge train station



The beautiful arch in front of the train station



A little bit of America!!??!!

Afterwards, we re-traced our path of 2008 to find this small park:


"The dying Lion of Luzern" is one of the world's most famous monuments.  It was hewn of natural rock in memory of the heroic death of the Swiss Guards of Louis XVI of France.  On 10 August 1792, the guards defended the Palais des Tuileries, in Paris, when it was stormed by revolutionaries.  The Lowendekmal was carved by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen.  Mark Twain described the Lion of Luzern as "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world".  I don't know about the "most", but it is definitely moving and really, really sad.  See detail below. 



How Thorwaldsen carved the detail into this chunk of rock is beyond me.  You could even see the toenails on his paws.  It was amazing.

By now the sun was getting really low in the sky.  We could have hurried on to see more, but we chose to just sit in the park, listen to the water and the birds, and enjoy ourselves.  It was wonderful.  After a while, we headed towards the lake and found a fun pizza place with sidewalk seating and really good pizza.

As we took up our walk again, who should we run into, but two missionaries from our church on their way home for the evening.  We stopped them and chatted for a moment, and then window shopped all the way to the lake.  We stopped at the church and tried to get a night shot.  It's not the best, but the place was beautiful all lit up.

A walk around the lake in the dark and back to the hotel---the end to a wonderful day in Luzern!