Tuesday, July 16, 2019: Day 10; Lucerne; Farewell Dinnerf

Our tour group

Today is our last full day on the tour. Tonight, we take a boat ride to a restaurant across Lake Lucerne for a farewell dinner.

We started the day with room service breakfast. The omelettes were a bit dry, but overall very good.

This morning we have a short walking tour through the old part of Lucerne. Lucerne is considered to be a "laid back" city, in contrast to Zurich or Bern. Things go a bit slower here and it is much less noisy and chaotic. We met our guide at the hotel and we walked along the lake front for a bit. She told us that while Lucerne's population is only about 80,000, it has a large number of visitors. Part of this is due to the fact that being centrally located in Switzerland, anyone moving north/south across the country would normally "visit" Lucerne during their trip. German is the widely used language in Lucerne.

Surrounded by the foot hills of the Swiss Alps, Lucerne was a walled city with 14th century ramparts along the north and with the lake to its south. Most of the wall surrounding the city is gone, but there is still some remaining and some of the watch towers. While it has a public bus system, Lucerne is a very compact city and can be walked with ease.

Then we crossed over to the old part of the city where we walked through the iconic Chapel Bridge. The bridge was restored after a fire in 1993 virtually destroyed it. Today it remains the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, as well as the world's oldest surviving truss bridge.

Farmer's Market along the river

One end of the Chapel Bridge

Our local guide

Inside Church of St. Leodegar

The adjustable "needle" dam. Constructed in the middle of the 19th century, it consists of wooden plates (each about 6" wide and 30 feet long) which are added or removed maintain a constant water level in Lake Lucerne. Being a World Heritage Site, they cannot change its operation, but they have extended it. There is also a small hydroelectric power plant adjacent to the dam.

Part of the remaining city wall and a watch tower can be seen

An old "out of service" turbine once used on the river

Current turbine is below the triangular wedge

We finished the walking tour by browsing some streets and taking in some of the artwork on the buildings.

Then we were given the remainder of the afternoon off. Maria and I found a nice little river front cafe and settled in for a long European lunch, lastly about three hours.

After a preliminary appetizer, we ordered a dozen Dutch oysters. Not bad at all, although a bit briny.

Then we split a burger and headed back to prepare for the farewell dinner. On the way, Maria found a dress she wore to the dinner, a couple of scarfs and a very nice pair of ear rings.

The one hour boat ride was enjoyable even though the sun was very intense and we ran out of white wine :(

Once we arrived, we were greeted by a couple of locals who waved and Swiss flag and blew into a long horn.

The same horn blower scanadaded us during our dinner using an assortment of instruments including an accordion, a saxophone, a pan flute, bells, and spoons.

Time to boat back to the hotel. Before boarding, we got a couple of shots with some of our favorite tour friends.

Carroll, Ron, Maria 

Sunset over Lake Lucerne

Maria flies home tomorrow. Her plane leaves from Zurich at noon so she is leaving the hotel at 8:00 am. I am staying an extra night in Lucerne before flying to Copenhagen on Thursday, July 18, to meet Laura and Megan for our Baltic cruise. Maria has been a joy to travel with and I am so grateful she was willing and able to accompany me. Our next trip together is schedule for September in Romania.