84/365
Am Vierwaldstättersee, Luzern, Schweiz
Explore Posterous
Search posterous
Search all posts and users. Type a name, type a favorite song title, whatever! See what comes up.
More posterous blogs
Here are posterous posts filed under luzern...
Luzern
Chapel Bridge.
"The "Chapel Bridge" (Kapellbrücke in German) is a 204 m (670 ft) long bridge crossing the Reuss River in the city of Lucerne in Switzerland. It is the oldest wooden bridge in Europe, and one of Switzerland's main tourist attractions.The covered bridge, constructed in 1333, was designed to help protect the city of Lucerne from attacks. Inside the bridge are a series of paintings from the 17th century, depicting events from Luzerne's history. Much of the bridge, and the majority of these paintings, were destroyed in a 1993 fire, though it was quickly rebuilt.
Adjoining the bridge is the 140 feet (43 m) tall Wasserturm (Water Tower), an octagonal tower made from brick, which has served as a prison, torture chamber, watchtower and treasury. Today the tower, which is part of the city wall, is used as the guild hall of the artillery association. The tower and the bridge are Lucerne's trademark and form the most photographed monument in the country."– Wikipedia
Luzern
Church of St. Leodegar
"The Church of St. Leodegar (German: St. Leodegar im Hof or Hofkirche St. Leodegar) is the most important church and a landmark in the city of Lucerne, Switzerland. It was built in parts from 1633 to 1639 on the foundation of the Roman basilica which had burnt in 1633. This church was one of the few built north of the Alps during the Thirty Years War and one of the largest and art history rich churches of the German late renaissance period." – Wikipedia
Luzern
Guild of painters, glaziers, glass painters, gold leaf producers, copper engravers, etc. on parade.
"Lucerne (German: Luzern) is a city in Switzerland. Due to its location on the shore of Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee), and within sight of Mount Pilatus and Rigi in the Swiss Alps, Lucerne is traditionally considered first and foremost as a tourist destination." – Wikipedia
Switzerland - Part Two: Luzern and Berne
Current location: Netanya, Israel
Next stop: ???
Next stop: ???
Well, we've been enjoying ourselves so much here in Israel that we've been pretty slack about writing more about our adventures. Can you blame us? Beautiful weather, inviting beaches, great food... sitting down to write hasn't exactly been high on the list of things to do! But, gotta get around to it eventually, so here we go.
LUZERN
So in our last post we had just jumped on a train in Zurich bound for Berne via a town called Luzern, which we had heard is a beautiful place. I forgot to mention though that when we bought our tickets to Berne, we also purchased a train ticket to Milan in Italy -- we knew that the cheapest way to get to Israel was from Rome, so we planned to spend some time in Italy after the wedding before catching a flight to Israel. Anyway, during the train ride to Luzern we were treated to yet more stunning Swiss countryside -- Hanni was like a kid in a candy store, bouncing around the train snapping photos out of the windows. We got a bit thirsty on the train too so Hanni asked a passing waiter how much the water cost, which turned out to be ridiculously expensive (like CHF4.00 or something!), so we passed on the water. Then the waiter went ahead and poured Hanni a cup and said it was free, just for her. Hanni blushed and Mike got a little jealous but hey, we were thirsty!
Once we arrived in Luzern, we stashed (well, crammed) our bags into a locker so that we could walk around for a bit. As I mentioned last time, the trains in Switzerland run every half an hour, so we had the luxury of taking as much time as we liked before having to catch another train to Berne. As we walked out from the station, we couldn't help but notice how many bicycles were parked along the roads. It was a strange contrast to Thailand where the streets piled up with parked scooters! Being a city built on a river, we crossed this amazing old wooden foot bridge, which apparently burned down a long time ago but was re-built in the exact same fashion so that it still looks and feels like the original old bridge. And on the other side of the river, there was a cool old castle-like wall with several towers along it. As we got closer, we found that we could get to the top of the towers. It didn't take long though before we decided that one tower would be enough -- getting to the top of the tower involved a lot of stairs, and it was a hot day. The view from the top was well worth it, but with only my 50mm lens working, I wasn't able to get a decent photo of the view.
After our long climb up the tower, we walked along the wall back towards the train station where we hopped on the next train to Berne. By this stage Hanni was too exhausted to hop around the train snapping photos, but it was still a stunning trip.
BERNE
We arrived in Berne in the evening, around 7pm, but we had yet to sort out our accommodation -- we were hoping that Yonni and Katja would be able to help us as we had been unable to find anything affordable online. Having not yet heard from either of them, we headed for the nearest McDonald's so that we could get online and see if we could find something.
Although we still couldn't find anything that we could book online, we found the names of a few places that we could call to see if they had beds available. Our trusty friend WikiTravel suggested a place called Hotel Glocke (aka Berne Backpackers) which was supposed to be one of the cheaper places around (but for CHF35 per person per night for just a dorm room, even this was incredibly expensive!). We called and confirmed that they had room available, which was a relief, so we booked ourselves in and called Yonni and Katja to let them know that they could stop looking -- which was even more of a relief to them, as they had been juggling getting ready for their wedding with trying (unsuccessfully) to find us a place to stay!
We wrote down the directions to the backpackers and set off. The directions said to go down a couple of streets (which continue straight from one another) until we come across a crossroads with a clocktower and a McDonal'ds on the corner, then turn left and we'll find the correct street. So we set off down the first street until it continued onto the second street at which point we saw a clocktower and a McDonald's. So we turned left and... our street was nowhere to be found! Somewhat confused, we walked around for a bit then decided to continue in our original direction to see if we had more luck. We joked about how funny it would be if there was actually a second junction with a clocktower and a McDonald's (ha! What are the chances?). As we were laughing about this we saw a clocktower up ahead, and, sure enough, a McDonald's right beside it! Silly directions, don't you think?
After that, we found our place easily. And although it is just a backpackers, it was easily the nicest backpackers we've stayed in so far, and it had a full kitchen so that we could at least save some money on food costs!
The next day was the 4th of May (May the Fourth be with you). Remember, Yonni & Katja hadn't been expecting us until the 5th, so we still had a whole day to kill before we joined up with them. We set out to explore Berne and check out the famous bear pits, but it was really enjoyable just wandering around the streets; the architecture and atmosphere of Berne is just awesome. When we got to the bearpit though, there were no bears in sight. We thought this was a bit strange but then we read that four of the five bears had been moved to another location temporarily while construction work was being done to improve the pits. While we wondered if we could catch a glimpse of the fifth bear, we read another notice -- the remaining bear, sadly, had died only a week earlier.
Our next stop was a magnificent church, with a spire that towers over Berne (just our luck though; the top of the spire was under construction and had scaffolding all over it). Inside the church though was breathtaking -- for such a huge space, every detail had been meticulously and skillfully crafted. It was incredible and it blew my mind to be standing inside such an awesome display of architecture.
After the church, we also walked past Albert Einstein's old flat, where apparently he developed his Theory of Relativity. But we didn't go inside -- too expensive. Central Berne is actually very small, so having done that we went back to our backpackers to start planning our trip through Italy.
May 10th: Berne to Milan, then Milan to Verona
May 11th: Verona to Venice
May 13th: Venice to Florence
May 16th: Florence to Pisa
May 17th: Pisa to Rome
May 20th: Rome to Tel Aviv, Israel
The next day was our last day in Berne -- we would be meeting up with Yonni and Katja in Thun, a small town about 20 minutes away. In the morning, we bought some new pants for Mike so that he would be presentable for the wedding, then we got online to book the flight to Israel on the 20th of May. But for some reason the Israir Airlines website wouldn't let us go through with the booking -- some sort of issue with the website. Frustrated, we started trying a different web browser, then the internet went down completely! Even more frustrated, Mike ran to McDonald's to get online and try again, but still the website would not allow us to make the booking. So finally we resolved to call them through Skype, which was quick and painless and surprisingly, we got the tickets for even cheaper than what was advertised on their site (which was already a discounted fare)!
Yonni had also told us that the rest of Hanni's family had hired a car and would soon be driving through Berne on their way to Thun, so we hung around a bit longer hoping to hitch a ride with them. But by the time we got through, they were already in Thun -- it turned out that Hanni's brother Michael, the driver, had thought that the Swiss highways had no speed limit (not true) and had sped through to Thun in no time! Oh well, no big deal, so we caught the next train bound for Thun.
Arrived in Luzern (Lucerne)
We've just arrived in Luzern! It is so beautiful here. The train ride was extremely comfortable, and had breathtaking views of the countryside. Our hotel was a little walk from the train station, but what a beautiful walk. We were greeted happily by the staff (husband and wife) who helped us with our bags and got us checked in. The receptionist lady (the wife) already knew we were coming and had our keys ready. I just had to fill out a form. Free WiFi yay!
We're going to settle in for a few minutes and then head out to meet Mike and Pam at the north end of the Kapellbrucke bridge. I can't wait!!
By the way, I've posted a few pictures of Zurich on my blog: http://kineticac.posterous.com
Luzern
Jesuit Church in Luzern.
"The first large sacral Baroque church in Switzerland; constructed in 1666 by Father Christoph Vogler for the Jesuits.
The vault was redecorated in the mid-18th century. The original vestments of Brother Klaus, a famous Swiss patron, are stored in the inner chapel." – luzern.org
