Where to go?
The traveler's perennial dilemma is especially challenging in Switzerland because of so many
interesting options, but we can offer perhaps the most excellent solution based on years
of traveling through this high country: go to Lucerne.
You're going to find that your visit to Lucerne is one of the most rewarding aspects of any
trip to Europe.
It’s one of the world’s most charming towns and on a picturesque lake surrounded
by majestic mountains.
They truly have it all -- famous for its well-preserved Old Town consisting of many blocks of very
old buildings richly decorated with painted murals showing village life and hunting scenes
from the olden days, making this like outdoor art gallery.
And all of this is set on a beautiful waterfront along the shores of Lake Lucerne and the River
Reuss.
I've been to many of the main tourist towns in Switzerland, and there's other cute ones
like Lucerne, but this is my favorite.
I just think this is as cute as it could be.
I've been visiting Lucerne for thirty years leading guided walking tours and shooting
lots of video along the way, and in this program I'll be presenting all of the best of Lucerne,
giving you a complete in-depth look at how to enjoy this wonderful place.
The town itself is spectacular and the nearby mountains are amazing, the lake is gorgeous
and you can visit other cities such as Zurich and Interlaken and scenic mountain peaks,
some covered year-round in snow, such as Mt Titlis, not that far away.
The town itself is very compact, convenient and most beautiful.
The heart of the Old Town is a pedestrian zone with wooden bridges and cobblestone lanes
and lined with shops and banners and really a festive wonderful place.
The River Reuss is very scenic flowing right through the middle of town, lots of swans
and walkways on both sides.
The two covered bridges in the heart of Lucerne are the major monuments.
There is the 560-foot-long Chapel Bridge or Kapellbrucke.
It’s the oldest covered bridge in Europe.
It was first built in 1333, and there’s the Mill Bridge, also a very old covered wooden
structure.
The third famous landmark is the Lion Monument carved right into the sandstone cliff.
Those famous sites are nice to see you and will be on your list.
Perhaps even more interesting for your enjoyment and exploration of Lucerne are the pedestrian
lanes, the riverside cafes, which are a special feature that makes Lucerne quite different
than most other Swiss cities, all of which combined to make a delightful ambience for
this historic old town.
During the program we will show you in some detail how to get around and make the most
out of your visit.
There is a lovely promenade along the River Reuss.
It’s lined with cafes, restaurants and bars.
It seems like a big outdoor block party, and you can get some good food and delicious beer
in a lovely outdoor setting.
You can sit at the casual outdoor cafes and just have a simple salad or a sandwich, a
light meal or just a beer, kick back and watch the other people and the swans gliding by
on the river Royce.
Alongside the river cafe terrace you’ve also got a whole stretch of covered arcades
where the party continues with more restaurants and bars.
It's the kind of place that both locals and visitors can share in together and you'll
find it's a friendly atmosphere where you might join in some conversations over some
beers.
The weather's fine from early May through October and the action takes place all afternoon
and on into the evening.
Perhaps just a casual bite of sausage and fries to go with your beer or a more gourmet
dinner.
There's also a Mediterranean-style restaurant serving tapas.
You'll be surprised and delighted with the variety of cuisines available in this small
city.
Throughout the program we will be sharing with you a lot of our favorite places to eat.
Indoor tables are usually available but almost everybody prefers to sit outdoors, a luxury
they have a harder time enjoying during their winter.
Temperatures are quite reasonable throughout the year for Lucerne is actually at an elevation
of only 1300 feet, so even in the midst of winter it’s not generally bitterly cold
here, and in the summer it’s very comfortable.
Some of the nearby mountains do reach 10,000 feet with snow-covered glaciers all year round
but the temperatures in town are quite comfortable.
The best time to visit it anytime between April and October with the summer months being
especially attractive.
You’re going to really enjoy exploring the small lanes and plazas in Lucerne.
While the main shopping lanes will attract most of your attention, be sure to have a
look at the little side lanes as well.
They can be quiet respite from the busier shopping streets, and there's usually some
outdoor cafe tables and little unique boutiques for you to explore.
The town has lots of souvenir shops, but here, maybe something like an antique shop, and
there's a bit of a nightclub center on a couple of these side lanes where the action goes
late into the night.
Parental guidance suggested.
And now you get a feeling for the lanes of the town center, the old town center, it's
just those series of lanes like this.
It's just really comfortable to walk around in and the shopkeepers are all quite polite
and pleasant.
They all speak English, so it's easy to spend your money.
You'll undoubtedly hear some street music along the way.
[music plays] Walk a few blocks back into the center of
town along the main pedestrian shopping street.
Don’t worry about street names, it’s pretty obvious which way to go, but it’s called
Hertensteinstrasse and then it changes names four more times, but just follow your nose
and once in a while you might see a horse carriage coming through.
You'll undoubtedly hear some street music along the way.
[music plays] You can easily find a map of Lucerne perhaps
at your hotel or certainly online but you don’t need to study it too closely because
you can’t get lost in this small place.
The Old Town is surrounded on one side by the river and lake and on the other by a hillside,
an ancient fortified wall which you can climb, we’ll take you up there shortly.
Yes, during the Middle Ages Lucerne was a fortified walled town as were many of the
towns of Europe.
Feel free to just wander so you can rearrange the schedules and itinerary selected here
in any way that suits your personal preference.
This is a small town so you don’t have to be too concerned about constructing any sort
of efficient sequence of events.
And this area is filled with interesting shops, restaurants and ancient buildings.
The steep gable roofs covered with strong wooden shingles to ward off the winter snow
complete this picturesque scenario.
The automobiles are just not allowed into this large historic zone so you can wander
the cobble lanes without fear of getting run over
You’ll be very happy to spend the entire day walking through the historic section of
town that will keep you busy with some nooks and crannies left over for your next couple
of days.
The historic center of Lucerne is an extensive pedestrian zone: no cars, no trucks.
You'll discover several other peaceful small plazas in the middle of the old town where
cobblestone pedestrian lanes come together and form a charming open area ringed by ancient
buildings and sidewalk cafes, often with the fountain in the middle.
A good example here is at Weinmarkt.
It's the Wine Market Square and there is a beautiful painting on the wall illustrating
the Last Supper, with old buildings around, and that fountain is one of several hundred
fountains in the town that offer clean drinking water.
Their small independent shops and a few small department stores make this a prime retail
section of town.
Cobblestone lanes for pedestrians winding past ancient buildings that have the most
modern shops inside with everything spotlessly clean and well organized.
Switzerland is the land of efficiency and charm.
A guided walking tour is offered each morning at about 9:45 AM from the tourist information
office and you can hook up with that at the main train station, it costs the equivalent
of about $20 and takes 2 hours, but you can easily walk through town on your own in a
self-guided tour, especially with the tips that we will provide in this program
Now the town itself is oh, about ten blocks long and maybe three blocks wide for the pedestrian
zone.
So we're looking at an area that sizable, we're talking about thirty square blocks.
The layout of the old town is quite small and fairly orderly.
You can get a little bit lost, but it's so small.
There are three parallel streets that run in this direction, and they go for about seven
or eight blocks, so the old town consists of maybe twenty-four square blocks and it's
all shops and restaurants and bars of course.
The paving and everything of this town goes way back.
This was a very, a very civilized town say as far back as 1500.
Lucerne was an important trading center because it was on the main route through the Alps.
And that's how the horses and the travelers would go from the north of Europe into Italy.
That's how Lucerne became an important spot, it was on that main trading route, and that
continued and they had enough money that they were able to pave the streets of the town,
even way back when other towns just had dirt roads.
So they were really quite advanced here.
And then it became an important tourism center, particularly after the time of Queen Victoria,
because she personally came down here on vacation, that was in the late 1800s and she put this
place on the map for tourism.
You'll see a beautiful wrought iron sign with some gilding on it sticking out from the building.
It's a sign with the deer on it and that gives the names of the square.
This is the Deer Square.
Typical in the medieval days, the shops would have a sign hanging out that tells you what
that shop is about.
Now of course it's, a cafe, a little restaurant.
Here we have some beautiful painted scenes up on the wall, some some battle scenes and
some boar hunting.
See wild boar is a big thing here and in restaurants, if they are in season, we can get some wild
boar.
They've got there suits of armor on and hunting the boar.
There is a lot of these medieval signs such as that one over there with the double eagle.
And over here are some more beautiful painted scenes.
Look at what's going on there and you'll see the jewelry.
That was a jeweler, there is the cupids, the little putis with the gold wedding bands.
So they're advertising their services because a lot of their customers couldn't read, and
illiteracy in the, you know, Middle Ages and later times was pretty common.
And walking from the Deer Square right over next door to the town hall square.
The old Town Hall tower rises above the Kornmarkt square.
Kornmarkt is the general term for a market square that sells grain of all types including
wheats and barleys and it seems it's always been the center of Lucerne going back to the
medieval days and even today it's very lively with lots of bars and restaurants and shops
all around it.
While Lucerne does not have a single official main square, Kornmarkt comes as close as you
can get to that function.
You see it's right here in the middle of the old town.
It's a major gathering spot.
This is the old City Hall and they have other municipal offices in town now, but there are
still ceremonial functions that take place in the old City Hall.
There are some weddings that happen there and receptions for foreign visitors, and there's
a Picasso Museum just down the alleyway here if you are interested in Picasso.
And have a look at its architecture.
Up top there is that chalet-style roof with a steep pitch and kind of the wooden shingle
effects, so this is traditional Swiss architecture up top, but look at the lower floor, the ground
floor.
That looks more like Italian architecture like we saw in Florence.
So this is a mix just like Switzerland is Swiss at the northern part of the country
and Italian in the southern part of the country.
This large ground floor room used to be where they stored the grain back starting from the
early fifteenth century and now it's a multi-function space for art exhibits and special events
and weddings, still carrying on some official city functions.
Notice the number of kisses involved in the traditional Lucerne greeting.
Not two but three.
Something else to notice here is this wonderful restaurant, Pfistern and very often we have
dinner on our first night here.
And they also have tables downstairs, down below if you want to eat outdoors tonight.
But it's a very simple, rustic, wooden tables, wooden floor, wooden chairs kind of a restaurant
and they have the sausage.
And there you can get a traditional Swiss meal with the bratwurst and the potatoes.
It's quite good down there.
Other classic dishes offered here are the sliced veal with the cream sauce and mushrooms,
the Lucerne pastry form is filled with veal and pork and Swiss meatballs.
You can also get venison in season or grilled beef.
There are some vegetarian choices, and other Mediterranean-style options.
There's been a restaurant here for over a hundred years, but the building goes back
nearly 500 years when it started out as the Guild for the Bakers which was very convenient
since the grain market is right next door at the Kornmarkt.
You can sit outdoors on their terrace up above the street level which gives a beautiful view
looking out over the river.
Having some bratwurst in Lucerne here on the terrace at Pfistern Restaurant.
We'll show you more restaurants in a separate movie, part two of our look at Lucerne.
Look for it in our series.
Continuing from the Kornmarkt we're walking along one of those main lanes of town.
It's the Kappelgasse, Chapel Street, heading towards Kappelplatz, the Chapel Place, which
is another one of the main squares of town.
We've got a few high-end stores mixed in with the average shops here and sometimes the place
is rather quiet and empty.
Other times, you might run into something special.
Occasionally you'll get lucky and find yourself at a street market here at Kappelplatz.
Lucerne does have weekly produce and antique markets down by the river, and other random
sidewalk kiosks.
Or how about an Alpine horn concert?
Turns out this is a club of amateur musicians who get together and practice and play every
week.
They perform publicly just a few times a year in Lucerne and at some music festivals.
Does the club have a name?
Yes, Alphornvereiningen Lucerne.
Alphornvereiningen Lucerne.
And a website?
Yes.
Yeah.
Coming up in less than a minute we have another musical surprise for you.
Kappellplatz is also famous for its Renaissance style for Fritschi Fountain built about a
hundred years ago.
And this fountain is colorful.
See how is that it's painted.
They look like characters from the Carnaval.
They also have Carnaval in Switzerland too.
They get dressed up in funny costumes and party for the whole week.
Now behind me up this alleyway is a restaurant called the Stadtkeller and a crazy painting,
you see that goofy painting on the wall.
Well, that relates back to the Carnaval.
The Stadtkeller Restaurant is just before that crazy painting and it's the one with
the really entertaining floor show.
They’ve got the Swiss music.
And they got a little bit of dancing, they’ve got yodeling and it goes on for about an hour
and 1/2 and there's a dinner that you can get as well.
There comes a quick summary and we will show you more at the end of the program.
[music plays] Heading back over to Kappellplatz will find
Kappellbrucke, the world-famous wooden bridge of Lucerne, the symbol of the city, its named
Kappellbrucke because it begins from the chapel that's on Kappellplatz, St. Peter's Chapel.
The chapel bridge was first built in 1333 making it the oldest covered wooden bridge
in Europe.
The bridge is certainly the most recognizable and most photographed landmark in town.
You want to walk across the bridge and when you do that you'll find there's a gift shop.
Surprise, surprise.
It's where the Water Tower had formally been the armory for the old weapons of ancient
Lucerne.
There are paintings under the roof that show scenes from Lucerne and Switzerland's history.
The bridge also functioned as part of the fortification of the wall that went around
the city in the Middle Ages.
For the best picture, lure some swans into your foreground with the bridge and tower
behind.
There’s a very effective camera angle that you can get.
Stand along the shores of the River Reuss you’ll notice a little staircase that goes
down to the water, about 10 steps down from the sidewalk level right to the water level,
and often in the morning you will see a flock of swans paddling around, and if you walk
down the steps right to the water’s edge and lean down you will get a spectacular photograph,
with the bridge behind and on a clear day you can see Mount Pilatus in the distance,
and the swans of the foreground.
Be cautious about feeding these swans however because there is a law against feeding the
swans.
They take care of themselves quite nicely and if you’re caught you might get socked
with a big fine.
The second covered wooden bridge is called the Mill Bridge.
It’s a smaller bridge about 200 yards south of the Kapellbrucke along the river, and it
was built in 1408, notable for its series of paintings called “The Dance of Death,”
whose jangling skeletons of the Black Death make you feel lucky to be alive.
The clever Swiss have once again harnessed the waterpower that originally gave this bridge
its name, the Mill Bridge, and created a modern electricity-generating turbine, underwater
here and completely invisible.
Look at that little fountain with the red metal part.
That is a power plant.
It’s an underwater electrical generator.
So they built the dam there and they're making use of this water flow.
Very old covered bridge.
So amazingly we have a water generator, an ultra-modern facility, under water, not visible.
So you’ve got the combination once again of historic preservation, Swiss efficiency
and modern technology.
And we ran into a local guide.
“Seppi Schumacher.
Yes I’m a volunteer from the touristic office here, and we do this job in the old town.
You’re standing here at the Spreuerbrucke, the Spreuer Bridge.
It was one of the oldest wooden bridges in the town of Lucerne.
Many years ago, we think 600-700 years ago, they brought all the corn here and they would
make the bread for the whole old town.”
A clever evolution from grinding grain to generating electricity.
This is the River Reuss and it's the only outlet for Lake Lucerne.
And you notice here they have stick dam.
This is a weir, an adjustable dam.
They can take sticks out or put more sticks in and it just depends on the level of the
water and the amount of flooding, and melting of snow, because the trick is they want to
always keep the lake at the same level.
Particularly for the boat traffic because the boats want to pull up to a dock and make
it a uniform dock.
So they adjust the level of the entire lake with these sticks
This flows north and it ends up, eventually joins the Rhine and eventually into the North
Sea.
And up on the hill you see the wall of town.
Now you can walk up to the wall.
You follow a road over there around, and there will be a path on the other side of the wall
and that will lead you through the pasture with the cows, and you can climb the towers,
and from there you have a nice view looking back down on the town.
It's really quite nice.
Walking along that route will bring you to a gate in the large tower and you go through
the gate and take a sharp right, go up the stone staircase and it will quickly lead you
into the garden path that runs along the outside of the wall.
Right away you're getting nice views across the hillside and looking up at the outside
of the wall that you're about to climb.
You'll probably see some cows grazing and relaxing in the meadow, a nice barnyard touch
inside the city.
And you keep walking up higher on the path.
It's really not that steep, it's a good way to gain altitude, and it turns in a little
staircase and then you're inside the tower going up the authentic wooden and stone steps.
Be warned these stairs are rather steep and cramped, not for total weaklings, but it's
really only about 35 meters high.
So it's not all that bad and there are handrails for safety and to help pull yourself up.
Up those never-ending steps.
Emerging at the top you get a great view looking out over the city so it's worth the climb.
It's a classic Instagram shot for you which makes a great reward and gives you that rosy
glow of accomplishment after such a strenuous walk uphill.
You’ve walked into a yodel-ready vista.
It's a little bit of a workout, but you get a spectacular view and that makes everything
worthwhile.
And there's three towers actually.
If one is not enough you go down and you climb up a second, you get that view and then climb
up a third.
Most visitors miss this altogether, but it's fun.
Instead of spending all your time shopping, come on up and enjoy the view.
This old fortification wall around Lucerne still survives from the Middle Ages.
It was built around the same time as the two wooden bridges between 1350 and 1408.
And those bridges also functioned together with the wall as defensive barriers protecting
the city.
It's always easier walking downstairs, even if it feels a little bit more awkward, and
don't hesitate to take a break along the way.
Catch your breath, and rest up a bit.
Upon leaving the wall, you have a choice of returning back the way you came towards the
river, passing those same cows and down to the River Reuss, that's easy.
Or better yet, if you can spare another twenty minutes continue along the wall to a different
exit gate and you'll see more of the towers, with a chance to go up two more of them and
walk along the top of the wall if you wish.
Just as we’re feeling good about our little victory, we come across some real energetic
people, high school kids practicing track and out on the playground at the adjacent
high school fooling around.
Well that gives us a little jolt of energy to keep us moving along, but rather than climbing
two more towers we figure we got the best view already so we will just stay down.
The Middle Ages were times of turmoil always subject to outside attack from neighboring
cities, and these walls always played a role in protecting the city's commerce, to make
sure that goods coming into or out of the city could be properly taxed and not smuggled
in.
The historic plaque on the wall shows a diagram of the towers, and the routing and their names.
They are Nölli, Männli, Luegisland, Heu, Zeit, Schirmer, Pulver, Allenwinden, and Dächli,
nine of them.
The visit is free but there's a donation bucket you can contribute to help for maintenance
of the towers and these pretty gardens that you get to walk through as part of the trip.
The wall is built on a hill so you're still up pretty high with a nice view across the
lake and the rooftops of the old town and you continue strolling.
It's an easy walk back into the city itself, just takes a few minutes through the gates,
and here you have a view looking back up at one of the towers.
It's the Zeit Tower with the biggest and oldest clock in town.
They say fishermen can tell the time from way out on the lake in their boats.
You can see how the wall towers over the historic center.
We have three more movies about Lucerne including
excursions on the lake and up to the mountain tops, to Titlis and Pilatus and Rigi, and many other movies about Switzerland.
Be sure to look for them in our series. Taking you to most of the great places.
Over to Interlaken, up to the Jungfrau.
We will see the Shilthorn, Lauterbrunnen Valley, Trummelbach Falls, Grindelwald, Bern, then
on to Zermatt, the Matterhorn, yes we will have a look at the Gornergrat, up the Sunnegga,
do some hiking, show you the village then on down to Lugano and Locarno in the southern
part of Switzerland, the Ticino we also take you to the great city of Zürich.
Look for them in our Swiss collection.