Europe Days 32-34: Switzerland

 Saturday July 27

I woke up early, sipped Diet Coke, and updated this trip diary while everyone else slept in.  It’s still hot in the apartment, but a bit of rest has helped to raise my spirits enough to give me hope that I can see through the last three days of our trip.  I’m just going to go with the flow while in Switzerland. 

By 11 am, everyone else was up, showered, and fed.  After some discussion of what everyone wanted to do, we drove into Lucerne and I dropped Jennifer and Kirsten off at the Rosengart Collection, an art museum with a lot of 20^th Century art by Picasso, Klee, etc.  I drove Spencer and Garrett to the Lion Memorial and the adjacent Glacier Gardens, which is a strange hodgepodge of exhibits loosely relating to glacier formation, the alps, mountaineering, mapmaking, a tower overlooking the city, and, strangely, a hall of mirrors created for an 1896 exhibition.  The mirrors were amusing, and the rest mildly interesting. 

After a couple of hours, we reunited with the girls and walked around Lucerne’s old core, including its wooden bridges.  We ate lunch at the Hug Café, which had surprisingly good sandwiches and decadent desserts.  We ambled through the cobblestoned city, noting various historical sights called out by Rick Steves’ walking tour.  It was very hot, however – 37 degrees Celsius (97F), well above the historical average of 24C/75F – so we kept to the shade and took frequent water breaks.  Lucerne has many fountains with drinkable water, so we could easily refill our bottles. 

Our plan was to browse for a while, then do some grocery shopping.  At the stroke of 4 pm, however, all the stores abruptly closed, despite the throngs of tourists with wads of cash ready to spend.  Even the big Migros department store snapped shut.  I guess the Swiss would rather have their Saturday afternoon and evenings free instead of work.  We returned to the car and headed home (after stopping again at the Lion Monument so Jennifer could take a picture and buy a magnet).  We stopped by two other grocery stores along the way, only to find that they also were closed.  We ended up doing our grocer shopping at a convenience store adjacent to a BP station.  Much to Jennifer’s delight, we found PowerAide Zero, and grabbed 10 bottles.  That stuff has been hard to find – the only other place we found it was in a vending machine at the Vatican Museum. 

We returned to the sauna, and found that it was only 82 degrees or so inside.  Spencer and Kirsten took naps, but I wasn’t about to sit inside for the rest of the evening.  Jennifer, Garret and I drove 5 minutes up the road and found a public beach area on the shore of Lake Sempach.  We found a shady grassy area and enjoyed a nice breeze.  Garrett and I swam out to a diving board on a platform, and we passed the rest of the afternoon relaxing.  It was much better than sweating in the apartment.

We returned home and found Kirsten and Spencer writhing on the floor in hunger spasms.  Fortunately we got home in time, so we made salads and pasta.  We played hearts for a while – I shot the moon twice and still managed to lose.  The couple who own the place have largely been staying out of our way – they are house sitting another place nearby and we see them only occasionally, so it’s not as awkward as I had feared. 

Sunday July 28

I had checked around for church services in the area, but was unable to figure out when and where services were at.  So instead we slept in, which for me meant getting up at 7:30, even though I was awake for a while. By 11 am, everyone else had emerged.  Our host had bought us fresh croissants and bread, and Jennifer fixed eggs and what apparently was the Swiss version of bacon.  It passed the taste test.

At noon, we all went to the Lake Sempach beach, where we passed the afternoon relaxing.  It was quite crowded – apparently it’s the thing to do on Sundays.  Spencer, Garrett and I joined in a beach volleyball game, then went swimming and snoozed on the grass.  We picnicked on sandwiches and Pringles obtained from the BP grocery store.  At about 3 pm, a stiff breeze arose and clouds started to roll in, and the crowds started to leave.  We felt raindrops about an hour later, and decided it was time to go back to the apartment.

We researched our dinner options – we didn’t have food to cook, since the only thing open is the BP store – so we researched our restaurant options.  Many were closed today; others had closed for two weeks starting yesterday, since that apparently the last week of July and first week of August are common vacation weeks for the Swiss.  We ended up selecting a grill/barbeque place in a hotel a few miles away, and ended up dropping $200 for a couple of burgers, a plate of ribs, and a couple of other entrees.  No appetizers, no drinks, no desserts.  We’ve decided that Switzerland is expensive.  Even our hosts say that they drive to Germany to do their grocery shopping. 

While driving to the restaurant, we were caught in a torrential downpour.  I dropped everyone else at the door, but got soaked running from the parking lot.  According to the weather, a front is passing through which should push the heat wave out.  Tomorrow’s high is forecast only to be around 70, nearly 30 degrees lower than yesterday.  The front will bring rain and thunderstorms, so it looks like we won’t be going into the mountains like we had planned.  I’m not sure what we’ll do on last full vacation day. 

Monday July 29

Last night we decided to go to Bern for the day.  It has covered arcades for shopping, and is probably the most reasonable thing to do in the rain.   We were not in a rush to get going, so we left the house after 10 am.  We drove to Bern is a driving rain, then sqqishd around the old city.  The outdoor market was very small, but most of the stores under the permanent arcades were open.  There was little that interested us, however.  We found a great Italian lunch for under 25Sf/pp – a veritable bargain – then made our way too Einstein’s apartment where he worked as a patent agency while thinking up the theory of relativity.  It wasn’t worth $30 to walk up the stairs and see his desk, however. 

We rested in the Bern cathedral and brushed the rain from our jackets, while admiring how the Calvinists stripped all of the gilt and statues from the once Catholic building, and transformed it into a simpler place that focused on the preacher teaching the Bible in the common tongue.  An organist was in the loft – initially we thought that a child had escaped and was randomly pressing keys at full volume – but eventually we thought we detected some order from the cacophony.  We left before we could be sure, however. 

Jennifer’s goal was the new and improved bear habitat, which we had seen 28 years ago.  Apparently the BLM (Bear Liberation Movement) had successfully campaigned to give the city’s namesake a better place to live, and the new bear part opened about 15 years ago.  They certainly have it better than there forebears.  We meanwhile, were soaked to the skin, so we jumped on the bus back to the train station (where we parked), and rode home anfter getting carry-out food from Migros.  Dinner consisted of roasted chicken, salad and pasta, along with the last of our ice cream.  We will not starve before we leave. 

We’ve decided to check two bags, so we mixed and matched to put all the big bulky stuff (shoes, books, toiletry items), plus various gifts that would not pass muster with security (heavy candlestick holders, swiss army knives), and stuff them into the two expanding rollerboards.  We need to be up and on the road by 645 am, and will be traveling for about 13 hours.  Homeward bound.