Lucerne

What can I say about Lucerne?  What can't I say about Lucerne.  It's a beautiful, old city, well kept and well loved by the people who live there.  I feel unqualified to write too much about it - what can one learn in an afternoon, after all?  But like all good tourists, I saw all the main attractions.

The statue above is the Lion Monument, designed by Bertal Thorvaldson and carved by Lukas Ahorn in 1820.  It was created to honor the Swiss Guards massacred during the French Revolution.  Mark Twain called it "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

Chapel Bridge, built in 1333, is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, though much of it had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1993.  At the far end is the Water Tower, now used as a guild hall of the artillery association, but has previously been a treasury, a watchtower, a prison, and a torture chamber.  The bridge and tower form the most photographed monument in the country, and Lucerne considers them its trademark.

I don't know what's happening on this building, but it's fascinating.  Like watching The Seventh Seal with chemical enhancement.

We had to get to Zurich before the sun set, so here's one last look at Lake Lucerne.

Sunset in Zurich

I wish we had spent more time here.  Our bus pulled up to the waterfront just as the sun began to dip behind the clouds, and we hustled out of our seats to watch the last of the day's light play across the water.

We wouldn't be staying long in Zurich (we were driving into Austria early the next day), so our chaperones turned us loose in the city's Old Town, where we marveled at the cobblestone streets.  

A nearby church kept a deer in it's yard, and we ooh'd and coo'd and tried to tempt it closer to the fence with leaves and twigs and handfulls of grass.  One lucky girl with long arms managed to brush her finger along its flank before the doe spooked and bounded away.  

Like all good old churches, this church had a mausoleum, and we found it with its wrought iron gate left open for visitors.  After a quick round of dares and double dares, the brave among entered into its gothic shadows, telling tales about Swiss Miss Vampires, who "vant to drink your blud, vith teeny leetle marshmellows."  We aren't exactly scared, but it's dark and we're a little punchy, so when we do see candles shining a flickering light on faces in the distance, we don't even stop to think before racing back to our hotel, trying not to trip on that marvelous cobblestone street.

I'd like to go back to Zurich some day, to look at it in the light and see what I missed, or fill in the blanks for what I did see.  Moonlight does not lend itself to amateur photography on a less than professional camera, so all I have to remember the city by is pictures of its sunset. 

Faces

Just a small collection of faces and heads.  These faces come from various locations in France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, England, and Uganda.