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| View of Spreuerbruke from Kapellbrucke |
SMS and I were going to move onto Bern on day 3, but we decided to stay in Zurich so we could watch Gisele play softball that night with her team. After fortifying ourselves with Nespresso, we headed out for a morning of touristing in Old Town Luzern. We crossed over the two covered bridges: Kapellbrucke and Spreuerbruke. They were very pretty and quaint, even though Kapellbrucke was recently restored after a 1993 fire. It felt like Japan when you go to a historical site and you think the temple is 1000 years old but, in fact, since it’s made of wood, it’s on its second restoration and really, the physical structure you see is only ~50 years old. I digress.
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| Tower View |
So, the bridges were cool and then we went into a Coop for a cheapie breakfast. After eating more bread (yay!), we went to the old city wall. I had never been there so it was cool to see a new site. We walked along the wall and went up all three towers that are currently open to the public: Mannli, Zit and Schirmer. The views of the river were beautiful and we really enjoyed ourselves.
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| Walking the Wall |
We walked through the Old Town and went to the Dying Lion memorial, glacier garden and the Alhambra mirror maze. Our Swiss Rail passes, which served as Swiss museum passes, got us in for free, which is great since we saved 30 CHF.
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| 1313 entrance |
For lunch, we walked to a place near the train station called Grottino 1313. I later found out it was the #1 restaurant in Trip Advisor but I had found it through a Swiss Local recommendation app provided by the Swiss Tourism Board. We each had the set lunch and it was an exquisite meal. The food was delicious and we sat out in the sun-speckled courtyard and really had a wonderful, leisurely time.
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| Dessert extra! |
We ordered sparkling water that came in a pitcher with mint springs and slices of orange and lime. I started with a carrot soup with elderflower while SMS had an organic green salad. For lunch, I had the roast beef while SMS had the pasta with broccoli puree. For dessert, we had a pressed ice cream cake with honey and strawberries with an espresso on the side. The bill was a little more expensive than I thought since the prix fixe didn’t cover as much as I thought but, really, it was totally worth it.
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| 1313 Courtyard = Paradise |
That contrasted with our next activity which was to pick up Gisele’s kids and hang out with them at the Transport Museum. As I told them later, “It was only three hours but felt like forever” but I promise, I mean that in a good way.
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| The push-pull railroad car |
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| The car garage |
The boys really liked to ride the buses out in the courtyard, which are kind of like Tonka trucks on steroids. You sit on them and can either push yourself along with your feet or (preferably) have someone push you. On the few times SMS and I went inside with them to see an exhibit (at our request) the #1 ichiban question was, “When can we ride the buses!?!?” But we had a great time, complete with an ice cream break in the middle. We also rode on paddle boats which was fun, although my idea for “bumper car paddle boats” was shot down by the man in charge. Whah. No Spartacus-like scenes of “ramming speed!!”
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| One of the drill bits used to create the Gotthard Tunnel! |
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| Swiss-style BBQ |
We all went back to the apartment and dropped the boys off with a babysitter. Then we went on a two transfer bus trip that went very smoothly to get to the softball field. There, we watched the Swiss Team play against the American summer visitors and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we had a BBQ with more sausages (yay!) and beer. It was a great way to celebrate the 4th of July!
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| Part of Team Suisse and their American friends! |
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