Journey Through the Alps - Lucerne and Zurich

Lucerne is a German speaking town in the central part of Switzerland.  It is an eclectic mix of many different types of European architecture.

Lucerne is famous for having the oldest covered bridge in Europe - built in 1333.  It is flanked on both sides by shadow boxes bursting with begonia blooms.  Sadly most of the bridge had to be replaced after a fire in 1993 - caused by a cigarette.

The Lucerne cathedral.

Very Rococo on the inside.

Many of the buildings are extensively decorated with frescoes.

Love these windows!

There was a lot of great shopping - including this cool store.

This Lion Monument honors the 600 Swiss guards that were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris. 

It is quite stunning and amazing that it was carved out of the rock wall.

Church built in the 1600's.

Like our "8 is Great!" recognition - here are all of the recent baptisms.

One of the coolest things about Lucerne is that remnants of the old town wall still exist with 8 standing towers.  

We walked along a portion of the old city wall.

And we were able to go up into some of the towers.

Like the clock tower - which actually was sort of a clock museum and held many clocks.

We were able to get some pretty amazing views from the towers.

Looking back at a couple of the towers and part of the city wall.

Next we were off to our final destination - Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland.  We started to walk from our hotel to old town Zurich and ran across this very interesting shopping center.

It was made up of trucking crates.

Very urban.  Very trendy.

This old greyhound bus held a Wooster clothing boutique.

There was a Freitag store - something we had never heard of before.  Frietag uses old trucking tarps to make very cool and indestructible bags.  Most of that tower of crates held bright, colorful bags of all sizes.  The rest was just a tower that we climbed to the top of.

We eventually made our way into old town Zurich.

We saw many wonderful buildings and shops.  We loved this toy store!

We had one last authentic Swiss dinner and prepared for a long travel home.  It was hard to believe our journey had come to an end!!!  We had been to four different countries and several cities, towns and villages.  We had eaten amazing food and visited interesting places.  We had seen some spectacular scenery and learned so much about these cultures!  We loved every minute of it and felt so grateful we had the opportunity.

*I wanted to post this picture.  This is what is painted on the ground in places where there are pedestrians.  I thought it was so cute!