Switzerland: Lucerne (Oct 7-12)

Adventure World Summit brought me this year to Lucerne (Luzern) Switzerland. No airport so choices are to fly to Zurich, Geneve, Basil and take a train. I opted for Geneva to visit friends (lovely breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien on Av Alfred Bertraud 1, a nice nighborhood on the hill above city) and then take a 4-hour train through the lovely valley that skirts Lake Geneva.  Tip: sit on the right side o the train to get lake views.

Heidi was here

Lucerne train station is smack in the middle of the city it's very easy to get around on foot. Many of the lovely stately hotels are on the Schweizerhofquai and Haldenstrasse, but I stayed one bock form the train station at Hotel Continental on Murbacherstrasser. Approx $180 a night.  Basic, non-architecturally distinguihed hotel, but great service, generous and good quality buffet breakfast and central. I stayed on 3rd floor in a newer room. Apparently upper floor rooms were still not updated.

While the lobby bar and restaurant lacked atmosphere, across the park, one block away, was the very boutique and cunningly named hotel, The Hotel, http://www.the-hotel.ch/.  Vry cool lobby bar, with slanted huge windows that pverlook the park and you could actually see our hotel lobby from the sofas, so no effort entailed in using this lobby as your own.

Food and drink

The Kuntzmuseum and Conference Center is on the other side of the train and bus station.  Big glass building with several floors of exhibits that overlook the lake. The cafeteria is superb, offering flavors from all over the world (you order your curry/stew by the name of the country it represents.) 

Hotel Schweizerhof: old stately building, with huge lobby and bar.  Many along this stretch across the lake and along the lake have outdoor tables.

Old Swiss House: traditional Swiss cuisine restaurant on Old Town of Lucerne, Lowenplatz 4.  Excllent servcie and food was superb. Everything that came out of the kitchen was top notch.  Spendy, but worth it.  Needs a reseravtion as it is a classic destination  restaurant.

Lion Monument: lovely tribute to fallen soldiers and quite emotionally charged. Huge lion carved out of the rock.

Lots of lovely streets hat wend up and down through Luzern well worth exploring.  You'll stumble on local cafes and bakeries.

Great day hike: Stanserhorn. Take the world’s first double decker open top aerial cable car, the Stanserhorn CabriO to the top then take any number of trails around the upper villages and ventually walk down to the rail line in the lower villags to get back to Luzern. We took the train from Luzern central station, to Stans station. 

I can see Russia from my house!

Off the train we walked a few minutes to a cable car ride in the wooden wagons of the vintage funicular to the station Kälti mid way, then we transferred to the Cabrio Cable Car to the top.  Amazing 360 views, marmots and trails.

Are we there yet?

We hiked down to Wirzweli through high pastures and the sound of cow bells accompnaied us all the way. Magical Heidi country. Stopped for lunch at Bergasshaus in a 'village' still quite high in Witzweli. Then continued down for another 30-45 minutes to the train station Wolfenschiessen and took the train back to Luzern (approx 40 minutes). Fab.

Umm...so, where do I go to the other 5 things?