Switzerland - Lucerne 🇨🇭

Feldkirch to Lucerne

We left Feldkirch early and eager to get to our most important stop of the day… the Lindt Chocolate factory. Along the way we passed some beautiful alpine lakes that were blue-green against the high mountains. Even from the roadside stop these were pretty spectacular places to take in.

Lindt Chocolate Factory

While the Lindt factory is just south of Zurich the detour only added about 20 minutes to our trip. I think we can all agree that 20 minutes is a small price to pay for Swiss chocolate. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan far enough ahead and the factory tour tickets were all sold out. As a result, we were relegated to the café (with many chocolate goodies) and a huge retail store. Ah shucks!

I don’t think I realized all of the chocolate that Lindt produces. The choices in the shop were overwhelming but the place smelled heavenly. Cathy told me I could only get one thing so I promptly found a “suitcase” of chocolate for about 80€. That seemed like a good compromise to me. Cathy had other ideas so we settled on filling up our own little bags with Lindt truffles. At the end, when we checked out, my bag was a bit bigger than Cathy’s. 🤣

They even have a gigantic chocolate fountain. You have to admit, it would be fun to dip in a finger and get a taste.

Instead, we settled for some drinks and chocolate mousse from the cafe (which were delicious).

After the café / shop, we decided to walk a couple of blocks to take in the views of Lake Zurich which was beautiful and peaceful. Many Swiss were out enjoying the lake on their sailboats and soaking up the warm weather.

Lucerne

Our first couple of days in Lucerne were cloudy and raining. We made the best of it by getting out and exploring the Chapel Bridge, the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. It is a footbridge that spans the river Reuss. The paintings on the interior of the bridge date back to the 17th century although most of them were damaged or destroyed in a fire in the early 90’s. Most of these look like they are restorations.

From the bridge, we made our way to the old town to view its many historic buildings with unique paintings and several of the old town fountains which are beautifully decorated and still in use today. We made our way up to the Musegg Wall and its 9 medieval towers that used to protect the city. We climbed the clock tower and checked out the inner workings of the clock. We then made our way down the top walls checking out the towers as we went along. The towers and walls provided great views of the city although the weather was doing it’s best not to cooperate.

At the end of the wall that terminates at the river we arrived at the second of Lucerne’s footbridges, the Spreuerbrücke, a 15th century footbridge featuring a series of paintings with a death motif. I definitely need to brush up on my German so I can translate these paintings. We wandered around the old town and admired the architecture, the river and the weir system still used today.

On the last day in Lucene the weather was much better with partial clouds and bits of sun. The positive aspect of the rain was that it cooled the city down which was experiencing unusually hot weather. We used the cooler weather to get out and see more of the sites and stroll along the lake.

After a long walk around the city and the lake we decided to grab some refreshments and enjoy people watching as well as checking out the many boats that were moving about the lake.

We wrapped our day in Lucerne with dinner on the river and Lucerne thanked us with a beautiful sunset.