Lucerne, Switzerland – September 19, 2012

The weathermen were correct, it was rainy and cold all night and was also raining steadily as we woke up this morning.  It was cooler in the room since we had left the window/door to the balcony open all night because the room had been so warm from yesterday’s high of about 76 degrees F. when we went to sleep.

We set the alarm for 7:30 AM, knowing that we had no real plan for today due to the rainy weather.  We had originally set the trip duration in Lucerne to three nights hoping that we would be able to do the Golden Round Trip to Mt. Pilates on a sunny day.  Tomorrow’s forecast is for sunny, but cooler weather, so that will be our Mt. Pilates excursion day.

We ate breakfast downstairs in the hotel, which is included with our room rate.  Breakfast consisted of the traditional servings for this area, bread, sliced meats, cheeses, cereals, and coffee. It was good, especially the coffee, since it was brewed to order and placed in an insulated pitcher.  There was also some fresh baked croissants, and homemade yogurt.

After breakfast, we bundled up and headed out into the cold, rainy weather.  It was just a steady drizzle, and we wore our rain gear and also took our umbrellas.  We walked over to the area by the train station, which is also the area where the boats depart to the various stops on Lake Lucerne, including the trip to Pilatus.  We just wanted to familiarize ourselves with the locations of the various boat departure points for tomorrow’s trip.

We then walked along the lake to visit the house of Richard Wagner, the composer.  The guide book Stephanie read indicated it was only about a 10 minute walk from the train station, but it was just wrong.  The walk was at least 30 minutes in duration before we found the house.  We ended up wandering through an art school along the way, thinking the house was closer.  Unfortunately, the location of the museum was just off of the actual map, it just gave an arrow for the direction to proceed at the end of the map’s coverage.

We finally saw some signs indicating we were on the correct trail, and eventually, we found the house.  Stephanie had visited here 23 years ago when she traveled through Lucerne as part of a select high school concert band group.  We took some pictures of the house and Lake Lucerne, and then started the long walk back into town, but on a different route.  The city buses ran on the road we were walking on, so we got smart, remembering bus transportation in Lucerne was included in our Swiss Pass, and decided to ride a bus back to the train station, giving us some rest from the walking, and from the rain.

After exiting the bus at the train station, we headed over to the Jesuit Church, near one end of the Kapellbrücke Bridge.  It was very beautiful inside, it was full of a rose colored marble, and the basic colors of the walls were an off white, with rose trim.  There were several side chapels on both sides of the main church, and those were mostly dedicated to various saints.

After visiting the church, we just wandered around in some of the stores, trying to stay out of the rain as much as possible.

We stopped for a bite to eat for lunch, “to go” style, consisting of a sandwich made on pretzel bread.  It was pretty tasty.  After going to a few more stores, we decided to head back to the room to warm up, get dry, and relax.  An entire day of rain is hard to accept on a limited duration schedule, but it also gave us some time to rest,  relax and catch up on the blog and photos.

As the day wore on, the weather cleared slightly, and at least the rain stopped.  We got brief periods of small patches of sun, and then the clouds would roll back in.  We imagine that some of the higher peaks might have gotten a little snow.  Certainly, the river looked higher, and was flowing with more velocity than yesterday.

We went to eat at an English Pub tonight near the hotel.  It seemed that the crowds out and about for dinner were much less tonight than on Tuesday night, either due to the cooler weather (more outside bars were closed) or to something else, we just were not sure.

The food at the pub was good as well as the beer, although, as we know by now, both were expensive.  It was actually  fairly crowded inside, most of the people were watching English soccer on the TV.  We finished dinner and headed back to our room to get ready for the early morning start on the Golden Round Trip to Mount Pilatus.