Weekend in Lucerne

Well, this last weekend Ana and I decided to visit Lucerne. This city was voted the fifth most popular tourism destination in the world in 2010 by Tripadvisor. All I can say is gorgeous. We arrived late Friday night around 8 pm and then were met by our host we found on couch surfing! This is a program where people from all around the world let you "sleep on their couch." It's good because 1) you save on the cost of a hotel room and 2) you get to meet people from all different backgrounds. Of course when looking for a "couch" you should be a little careful and look for members with a solid background, a lot of references, etc. Once you find said person, you send them a request! They look at your profile and decide whether to "couch" you or not. Pretty cool!! So our host was a 24 year old mechanical engineering student who loved to travel, hike, talk about cultures, and eat Thai food. For dinner we made salad and then just sat around talking for a couple hours.

Lucerne :) (Although in German it's spelled Luzern. Caused quite the confusion for me as I tried to decide which train to take to get there.)

Saturday we went sight seeing, visited the same bakery three times, and then came back to a wonderful Thai meal cooked by our host complete with two pies! Let me just say, we ate goood Saturday. I picked some wild flowers along the way:). Then we decided to go out and went to this club that played half gypsy music, half extreme oldies. I'm talkin' Rocikin Robin by Michael Jackson old. And no offense to Swiss people, but they really don't know how to dance. So combine all of that... equals AWESOME! 

Now you can see why we kept coming back.

Sunday, Ana and I decided to do some more intense sight seeing. The following pictures are basically just a collaboration of everything we saw/did.

What it looks like going under  Spreuerbrucke (Mills Bridge.) The gables are painted with the Dance of Death commemorating a plague that swept through the city in the 17th century. 

Lucerne.

I couldn't decide which picture to put up! They're both so pretty!

Couldn't resist! She looked just like a swan wearing all white clothes and then orange SHOES! Wish I could have gotten her purple balloon in this picture as well. 

Standing under the Kapellbrucke (Chapel Bridge.) The symbol of Lucerne built in 1333. Terrible people for graffiting it (behind me.)

Adorable little Asians enjoying the sun and lake!

Lunch time! Lost count of what number Margarita Pizza this is.

Es ist Fruhling!

View from the flower garden. 

Photo random man from Hong Kong wanted to take of us. This kept happening! 

So... random photo I asked to take back!

 MOVING ON! After just moseying slightly aimlessly we decided to follow an travel itinerary's map. Highly advise doing that! You see so much more and it's all very doable by foot.

Museggmaur. This is a remnant of the old town walls. You can still walk a long it  and go up in  some of the towers. Ana and I decided to do this and were quite alarmed when we all of a sudden walk to the bell and it starts ringing!! Ah! Probably one of the biggest shocks of my life to be in a tiny room with this huge bell tolling.

View of Lake Lucerne from the wall.

From there we headed down to Lowendenkmal (Lion Monument.) There was a very different feeling in the air here. Almost like peacefulness and sadness. This is a monument is an allegorical reference to the bravery of the Swiss Guards who died in 1792 trying to save Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution when the people stormed the Tuileries of Paris.

During Mark Twain's grand tour of Europe, upon seeing this particular monument he said this dying lion was "the saddest and most poignant piece of rock in the world.

Yet another random view of Lake Lucerne

And that's basically it for the weekend! Everything else is going well. I made it safely back to Bern and home last night around 8:30 pm. Onto another normal week!