Adventures in England: Lovely Lucerne

On Tuesday morning, Tools, Mary V, and I took the train to Lucerne. The ride was very short...only 45 minutes! Lucerne is an absolutely charming Swiss village. It looks as though no one has built anything new there in over 100 years, but all of the buildings are in excellent condition. There are lots of cute stores, restaurants, etc, and all of the streets are cobblestone. A big lake (Vierwaldstättersee, or Lake Lucerne) separates the town into two parts - Old Town and New Town. In Old Town, you'll find lots of quaint shops, millions of souvineer, watch, candy, shoes, and clothing stores. But Old Town shuts down really early! New Town stays open much later. There's a long covered bridge that goes across the lake...it's so neat! When we arrived, we checked into our hotel and then went to the top of Mt. Rigi in the Alps. To get there, we had to take a boat ride, then take a tram to the top of the mountain. The Alps are absolutely gorgeous. Since it's winter, they were covered in snow and just beautiful. Mt. Rigi has lots of ski resorts that we passed by in the tram on our way to the top. When we reached the top, we ate lunch at a tiny restaurant and watched people sled down the mountain. It looked so fun! We roamed around the top of the moutain and took in the scenery. The weather was much warmer on the top of the mountain than down below, even though the top of the mountain was covered in snow! That's because we were actually above the clouds, so the sun was shining right on us. After a while, we rode the tram back down and caught the boat back to Lucerne. When we got back, we spent the rest of the day looking in shops and buying souvineers. We found Swiss Army knives in every color you could imagine...purple, hot pink, blue, teal, yellow, and of course the classic red. The most common souvineer items sold in Switzerland are: Swiss army knives, Swatches, chocolate, anything with the Swiss flag on it (red with a white cross), and cuckoo clocks. I really love Lucerne...it's so cute! It's such a picturesque Swiss village. That night, we went into New Town to try and find somewhere open for dinner. Guess what we ate...Mexican food! The restaurant was named La Cucaracha (cockroach), which made me think that Swiss people really don't know that much about Mexico, otherwise they wouldn't have named a restaurant The Cockroach. It just doesn't sound appetizing! But the food was very good, and the restaurant was packed! It's VERY hard to find Mexican food in England...I've only seen one restaurant since I've been here! So, it's nice to have a taste of home every now and then. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, which was very cute and spacious. It's great traveling out of season...you can stay at nice hotels for discount prices! The next morning, I headed to the train station and rode back to Zurich to fly out. I think someone could very easily sneak into Switzerland without a passport. The people at Passport Control barely looked at my passport...I could have had someone else's and they would have never known! They didn't even stamp it, which I was sad about, because supposedly the Switzerland stamp has the Swiss flag on it. Mary Virginia and Tooley didn't get their passports stamped, either! So, if anyone is thinking about flying to Europe without a passport, Switzerland is your best bet! :) I had a wonderful time, and I really do think Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I've been!