Switzerland: Lucerne and Zurich

Our final excursion while living in Germany was to Switzerland for Easter weekend. We went there with our friends, the Pettys, and stayed at Frank's sister's house in Zurich. The drive to Zurich from our town isn't too bad -- Zurich is about a 3.5 hour drive from our house, although we stopped through Stuttgart on the way to meet up with the Pettys. This was our first visit to Switzerland while living in Germany, although both Harmony and I had been there before, years ago. We forgot to bring our camera on the first day, when we visited Interlaken and hiked up in the mountains; however, our friends let us take some pictures with their camera, so I'll add those in the next post. We visited Lucerne on our second day in Switzerland. Lucerne is incredibly beautiful, but also incredibly expensive, like Switzerland is in general.

(L) Our little plumber (R) Lucerne's Chapel Bridge. This bridge was first constructed during the 14th century A.D.

(Above) I don't remember the name of this church, but it was nice like all of the others we've seen in Europe.

(Above) Is this the new bat mobile? We saw this parked by the Lucerne Market.

(Above) Per Wikipedia, the Lion of Lucerne is a sculpture that honors the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution. Mark Twain called it "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world." The stone statue was very large and impressive. The dead lion represents the Swiss soldiers who lost their lives defending King Louis XVI at the Tuileries. The statue was completed in 1821.

After spending half a day in Lucerne, we returned to Zurich and let the kids run wild at the shore of Lake Zurich. Both Jack and Lucas had a wonderful time throwing rocks into the water. We were there quite a while and Lucas did not get bored of chucking stones into the water.