Paris France to Lucerne, Switzerland – September 18, 2012

We were awakened by a telephone call at about 6:15 AM this morning, which confused us because we had not asked for a wake up call. Stephanie answered the phone in French, with a Oui, and got a response in French, upon which she answered Merci. We had no idea what was said in French on the other end of the line. We thought it was just a misplaced wake up call. When the phone rang again in about 5 minutes, we knew that was not the case. This time Stephanie answered in English, and through some rough translations, found out the front desk was calling and thought we had called for a taxi.  Stephanie told them we had not. We guessed it was not a wake up call the first time either. Someone was not getting their taxi, and we were woken up a little earlier than expected. Then, we did actually get an automated wake up call about 5 more minutes after that, again, one that we had not set.  After all of that sleep disruption, we figured it was time to get up. We felt sorry for the person(s) who was supposed to get those calls, they were probably still soundly asleep, missing their taxi and possibly their flight or train.

We checked out of the hotel, the toughest part of that being carrying all of our luggage down the 5 flights of stairs.  The tiny elevator had broken on Sunday, and was still not repaired. We were checked out and on our way to the bus stop at about 7:25 AM, right on schedule. Having to carry the luggage down the stairs at the hotel was another good experience that may make us give more thought to smaller and lighter suitcases on the next trip!

We were hoping that the city bus would not be crowded since it was early in the morning and not too many people were out and about yet. We walked the one block to the bus stop, and in about 5 minutes the bus arrived. It was not crowded, so we had plenty of space for our luggage. We validated our bus tickets and rode the 7-8 minutes to the Gare de Lyon Train Station, the closest stop being about one block from the station. It had been easier than we thought, taking the bus had been much simpler and quicker than the alternative three connection metro route, and we did not have to carry our bags up and down any stairs, typically found in the metro connection tunnels.

We found our train platform, and sat down nearby after purchasing some coffee for me and Diet Coke for Stephanie. We ate our breakfast consisting of some of the bread and meat left over from yesterday that we stored in our in room refrigerator and brought with us. Our train arrived and we boarded our double deck train car for the three hour ride to the border town of Basel, Switzerland, where we were to board another connecting train to Lucerne. The train was very nice, and the seats were comfortable. Our only small issue was that we were facing backwards from the direction of travel.  The train only makes 4 stops, and it was a smooth high speed train. The monitor inside our car indicted that we were going a top speed of 320 kilometers per hour, or about 198 MPH.  We passed through a lot of farmland as we progressed across France. The weather was initially overcast, similar to yesterday, but at about 10:00 AM, the sun came out.

There was not a lot to see along the way, made even more difficult by having seats that faced in the opposite direction to the way the train was heading  Stephanie did her usual  train travel activity, taking a nap, and I worked on the blog and photos until we were almost to Basel in Switzerland, which was our departure point for the French Train.  Next was our connecting Swiss train to Lucerne.  Before we could board that train, we needed to purchase our 2 for 1 Swiss Flexi Pass that will cover all of our transportation costs for any 4 out of 30 days in Switzerland.  The pass also gives you free admission to museums, and free local transportation on the buses in the larger cities, such as Lucerne.

We departed our train in Basel and exited to the main part of the train station.  We did not see any signs to direct us to the ticket offices to purchase the Swiss Flexi Pass, so we headed to the left.  It was the wrong choice.  We then headed back to the right and as we got to the other end of the station, we finally saw the ticket offices on the lower levels. We waited in line for about 15 minutes and finally got to a ticket agent.  All went well, the Flexi Pass was available as advertised for the special pricing.  We had one moment of panic when their credit card machine would not read our MasterCard card, which is the Capital One Card that does not charge us any additional “international transaction fees”,  typically 3 to 3.5%.  On the fourth try, the card finally worked.

We had about 7 minutes remaining to head back into the station and get to our Platform for the 12:04 train to Lucerne.  It was the soonest connection we could make, based on our arrival time,  but there were three trains per hour if we missed that one.  We hopped on the train and about a minute later the doors closed.

We had a one hour train ride to Lucerne, but once again, due to limited seat selections, we had to face backwards to the direction of the train travel, so we did not see that much.  In addition, we went through a lot of tunnels, and dark tunnels are not a big contributor to a scenic train ride.

We arrived on time in Lucerne, and the train station was not far from the hotel.  We walked about 5 blocks, most of it across the bridge over the River Reuss.

We arrived at the Hotel Des Apes and checked in.  Luckily, our room was ready, and we went up to the room on the river side of the hotel, on the 4th floor.  It had a beautiful view of the Reuss River and the famous Kapellbrücke Bridge, or Chapel Bridge in English.  Our room is the top left room with the square window openings in the picture on the right.

Since we knew it was supposed to turn cloudy later in the afternoon, we headed out to do a little exploring.  We walked along Lake Lucerne and took some photos.

We then headed to the Hofkirche Church.  It was pretty inside, with several different types of pews, some more ornate than others.  We wondered if there were different pews based on class or standing in the church.  There were also several gold gilded altars, including both the main altar and several smaller chapel altars on the sides of the main altar.  It was definitely worth the walk to see.

On the outside church grounds, in the immediate walled area around the church, there were many burial vaults, and also an area where it appeared that the cremated remains of church members were laid to rest.  These areas completely surrounded the perimeter of the church property.

From the Hofkirche Church, we headed to another “tourist” sight, the Lion of Lucerne Monument, which is a memorial to the Swiss Guards massacred during the French Revolution in 1792. It is a lion carved into the side of a large vertical rock ledge.

It is not that spectacular, but it something that “every visitor to Lucerne must see” according to the guide books.  It was not crowded when we arrived, so we got some good photos.

We then noticed a National Museum located near the monument so we headed up to see what it was.  It was called the Glacier Garden, and it was an outdoor walking area showing all of the effects of a glacier that had moved through the Lucerne area thousands of years ago.  It was interesting to see how the various degrees of erosion take place in the stone as a glacier moves though, and to see the fossilized remains in the sandstone that formed when this area was all part of the ocean floor.  The best part of this museum was that it was included in the free benefits we received with the Swiss Flexi Pass.

Next, we walked through some of the main shopping areas of Lucerne, and visited several grocery stores looking for a few items.  There were also many other stores of all types in this area, and so we did a lot of window shopping as we walked back in the general direction of our hotel.

We checked out a few eating establishments near the hotel, looking for possibilities for a place to eat for dinner.  We quickly found that in general, everything costs more in Switzerland than it does in a lot of other places n Europe.  We also saw that same theme indicated in the wine prices in the grocery store. However, since the Swiss Franc is closer in value to the US Dollar than is the Euro, we had to stop and think about the actual cost differential.  We always have to remember that everything bought in Euros is subjected to about a 28% exchange rate penalty with the exchange being roughly $1.28 to the Euro right now, where the Swiss Franc is close to an exchange rate of $1.11.

For dinner, we picked an Italian Restaurant close to the hotel that was located along the river.  Unfortunately, the bad weather that had been forecast had arrived, and it had just started to drizzle as we were finishing our shopping, so we headed back to the room for some warmer clothes and rain gear before going back to the restaurant for dinner.  We also wanted to relax on our  balcony, and have a glass of wine before dinner.

Despite the inclement weather, we did end up eating outside under a canopy, but it was a little cool if the wind blew.  On a funny note, we had to ask the waitress about ordering a carafe of wine, which we saw another couple get, but could not find on the menu. All we saw were the deciliter and 750 ml bottle prices on the menu.  We then found out that wine is especially expensive here at restaurants, and all volumes less than a whole bottle are sold by the deciliter, which is 1/10th of a liter.  A bottle of just average wine at a restaurant here seems to cost  about 55.00 to 65.00 Swiss Francs (CHF), or $61.00 to $72.00 (ouch).  A glass that is a deciliter in volume is about 7.50 CHF ($8.25).  To put it into perspective, a 750 ml bottle is 7.5 deciliters, or 7.5 glasses in Switzerland (they are really small glasses of wine).  In a normal USA comparison, there are about 4 glasses of wine to the 750 ml bottle at most restaurants, and the price is about $7.00 per glass for a decent wine. Here, if you want a carafe of wine, you just order the number of deciliters you want, there is no volume price reduction.  We were not sure why you would order it that way unless you just want to save time waiting on the waiter to bring another thimble full, or deciliter as they call it here.

We ordered a olive, ham, cheese and artichoke pizza, and a first course size serving of cannelloni pasta, stuffed with spinach and cheese. With the two tiny glasses of wine, the total bill was 64.00 CHF, or about $70.00, and this was not a fancy restaurant, equivalent to something like an Olive Garden, mostly just families eating there.  The food was really good.  The pizza was a little different, it had a tomato sauce, but all of the toppings were in separate areas of the pizza.  The artichokes were on one third, the whole black olives on another, and the ham on the other, with cheese on the whole pizza.  The cannelloni was really good, and came served in a hot skillet, so it stayed warm in the cool outside air.

After dinner, we headed over to a German Restaurant just a couple of buildings away.  We had almost gone there for dinner, but opted for the Italian place, knowing we would have a lot of German cuisine later in the trip There were a lot of people outside under their covered deck.  We ordered a couple of German beers, and a large pretzel for our “dessert”.  Beer is cheaper than wine here, but still a little pricey when compared to Germany, even when compared to Oktoberfest pricing.  We paid 9.00 CHF for a 0.50 liter beer, where,  as a comparison, in Germany, beers were 8.00 euro at Oktoberfest two years ago for a whole liter.

We wandered around taking some flash pictures of the various building with art and paintings on the outside.  One is a depiction of the Wedding Feast at Cana.  Others are just decorative.  It was now about 10:00 PM, so we headed

back to the room, calling it a day.  Unfortunately, it had started to rain harder, and the forecast for tonight and all day tomorrow is rain, and about 50 degrees F.