Europe: Day 16, May 16, Lucerne, Switzerland

Went to Stan, Switzerland. The town is at the base of mountains that are part of the Swiss Alps. We rode an old cog wheel train, or funicular, part way up the mountain. It was built in 1889 and still operates. 

Part way up the mountain we transferred to a very modern tram that was suspended between huge cables. It was very quiet and smooth and very modern, unlike the old funicular. The higher we went, the colder it became. The clouds also became thicker until we could see almost nothing.

 By the time we got to the top, it was totally socked in. The attraction was the view, but there wasn't much of a view. But it was an adventure. A restaurant at the top did a brisk business selling hot chocolate. 

We traveled back down the mountain the same way we had come up.

We then moved on to Luzern, or Lucerne, or Lucern, Switzerland, depending upon which sign you chose to believe. We saw all three spellings.  The city is situated on Lake Luzern. It is a very large, multi- armed lake with beautiful forested mountains rising straight up from it.  We took a walking tour making note of medieval era buildings and a long covered bridge. No matter where one goes in Europe there seems to be fascinating historical structures and accompanying history. 

Uncle Mike wanted a hamburger from Burger King, but refused to pay fifteen Swiss franks which equates to around $18 or $20. When Mike refuses a hamburger, you know something is not right.

We next took a scenic boat ride on Lake Lucern. If San Juan a County had that lake it would change everything.  We would exchange red for green as our primary color. 

Just for the record, we are trying to kick our gelato addiction, and didn't have a single gelato. 

That evening back at the hotel, we took a walk along a mountain path we discovered along with Ray and Mary Helen Palmer. The previous evening we walked a different path with Ray and Mary Helen and Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda. This place really is gorgeous. 

Dinner was very good. It was called "meat cut into strips."  Kind of a classy name, and very good. 


After dinner we were entertained by two rather old men who were quite entertaining despite an obvious lack of musical ability. The owner of the hotel admitted to our tour guide that they were his relatives and he didn't know how to tell them no. One guy played an alpenhorn, which is a very long horn, probably 12 or 15 feet long. He had some of our tour group try. Some could blow it and some blew it. Please note the clever play on words. 

This concludes our stay in Switzerland. On to France.  We took pictures of our group in this beautiful setting.  The first is of the 14 of us who knew each other before the trip.  The second is of all 42 of us who traveled together.  It includes our tour guide, Sara and our bus driver, Angelo.