The Chapel Bridge, in Lucerne

The D&O Diary’s European travels continued this past weekend with a stopover in Lucerne, the gateway to the Swiss Alps and a timeless city combining history, charm, and natural beauty.

Lucerne is located on the northwestern shore of Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee), at the foot of Mount Pilatus in the Swiss Alps. The city is located where the lake flows into the Reuss River. The city’s Old Town (Altstadt) is built along both sides of the river. The river is crossed by two historic wooden bridges, including by the iconic Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke), as depicted in the picture at the top of the post. A stone tower known as the Water Tower (Wasserturm) sits along side the bridge.

The city’s architecture is a blend of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. Its Old Town is a maze of cobbled streets, frescoed buildings, and charming squares. Colorful facades, ornate gables, and centuries-old churches add to its historic atmosphere. 
I particularly liked the many painted façades in Lucerne’s Old Town. This one, on the Restaurant Fritschi in Sternenplatz, depicts images and scenes from the annual Fasnacht (Carnival) celebration.
Pleasant walkways line both sides of the River Reuss.
On the hillside above the Old Town is a remarkably well-preserved stretch of the city’s defensive wall, the Musegg Wall (Museggmauer), which was built in the 14th century. The views from the wall’s towers are really stunning.

Our original plan for our Lucerne visit had been to take day-long excursions, involving both boat and train travel, for hiking deep in the mountains. However, the weather forecast calling for rain and thunderstorms convinced us to stay closer to home. So instead of longer excursions, we contended ourselves with walks in and around Lucerne itself. It did in fact rain on and off the whole time we were in Lucerne, though by and large we managed to avoid getting too wet.

Here’s a view overlooking Lucerne, with Mt. Pilatus looming in the background. This picture gives you a good idea why we decided it might not be worth it to try to make a big excursion deep into the mountains.
The entire Lucerne area is honeycombed with trails and footpaths called Wanderwege, which are part of a vast and meticulously maintained network of trails for walking, hiking, and exploring nature. The paths are marked with distinctive yellow signposts, as depicted in this photo.
On our first afternoon in Lucerne, we followed a Wanderweg along the east side of the lake, eventually reaching Meggenhorn Castle (Schloss Meggenhorn), situated on a peninsular hilltop overlooking the lake and with views both of the Alps and back to Lucerne.
The view from the fields above the Meggenhorn castle.
A wall lizard, one of Meggenhorn’s full time residents.
The next morning, we followed a footpath around the west side of the lake, to an open area on the opposite side of the lake from Meggenhorn. From the open fields, we had better views of the Alps to the south, the tops of some of which are still covered with snow.
The footpath we followed eventually led us away from the lakefront and deep into the Alpine forest. It is too bad this picture doesn’t come with a soundtrack — the woods were full of the sounds of birdsong.
After returning back to Lucerne, we took one more hike, following a footpath from right in the central lakefront in the city up a steep hillside. After a short, steep hike we were treated to terrific views of the Alps. Even though during our short visit to Lucerne we had to abandon our planned day-trip excursions due to the weather forecast, we really didn’t get short-changed at all. The hiking available from right in Lucerne was actually very enjoyable.
So many of my earliest European trips were in the winter months, I really didn’t get a chance to enjoy the outdoors. It is such a pleasure to travel in Europe in the summer months, to be able to see the wild roses in bloom.
In a totally random event, after our long day of hiking, we stumbled into a Thai food festival right on the lakefront. We enjoyed a welcome meal of green sweet curry. It is too bad that this picture doesn’t come with a soundtrack, because if it did you could hear the Thai musician who was performing American rock music sung in German.
A quiet evening lakefront scene. A quartet nearby was playing Samba music. Unfortunately, and as happened periodically throughout our visit, it started to rain, about ten minutes after I took this picture. We really can’t complain notwithstanding the rain; as the pictures above show, we managed to have a very enjoyable visit to Lucerne despite the unreliable weather.
For anyone visiting Lucerne anytime soon, I do have a restaurant recommendation. The Rathaus Brauerei (City Hall Brewery) is located in the smaller, white building depicted in this picture. The larger building next door is the city hall. The restaurant serves its own beer, which is excellent. We were fortunate to have a table at a window overlooking the river. My wife enjoyed a dinner of grilled trout. The trout supposedly had been caught that day at Meggenhorn, where we had walked earlier in the day. (She liked it that the dinners came with little Swiss flags on toothpicks.)
I also have a hotel recommendation. On this visit, we stayed at the Hotel Continental Park, located on a quiet side street just two blocks from Lucerne’s central train station. It is a comfortable hotel in an older building with many newly added stylish features. This picture shows the view from our hotel room window. (That’s Mt. Pilatus looming over the tree tops.) We kept the windows open to hear the birdsong and the sounds of children playing in the park across the street.