Today is Sunday and there are lots of church bells ringing that sound so nice up and down the river. The bells of the Jesuit Church right in front of our Airbnb actually rings most at about 5:00 p.m., but not so much this morning. However, all over Old Town and down river, the bells clanged away as we were heading out.
Because the weather forecast was for rain in the afternoon, I wanted to get more sightseeing in this morning, so we were out and about by 9:00.
The thing I was interested to see was Museggmauer, the Musegg Wall. The historic city wall was once part of the fortification of Luzern. Initially, the fortification was down around the river area, as the Chapel Bridge and Spreuer Bridge were part of that fortification defending against invasion from Lake Luzern. As the town grew, a wall was built around the city. The wall and 9 towers were built in the 13th century. With the preservation of the wall, it is one of the longest defensive walls still standing in the country. Each of the towers is named and served a different purpose.
On our way up the steep climb to the wall, we really appreciated the scenery, especially the wisteria, which is in full bloom all over Luzern. Christine said she wished she could take a picture of the smell. We also walked past a farm having Highland cattle and a great saying on the side of a shed.
Walking up to the wall and towers was amazing.
What made it especially great was that a young woman who was walking her dog up to the top of the fortification stopped to chat. She wanted to tell us about the interesting birds that were nesting in the wall. She then gave us suggestions about what to see around the fortification. This woman’s name was Iwona, who grew up in Germany (we sailed past her hometown during our cruise), but is now living in Luzern. We chatted for a while and she went on her way with her lovely dog Tessa. But as we wandered around the fortification, we would run in to Iwona and chat some more. Christine told her our life story and all about our travels. Iwona was really impressed that we’ve been together for 41 years and shared that since her breakup with her boyfriend that she has had a hard time. She is a very lovely woman and we seemed to have a connection. We got her email address and we plan on staying in touch.
From the walkway on top of the wall we got spectacular views of Lake Luzern and the Alps. Luzern is often called “gateway to the Alps,” and I can see why.
Iwona offered to take our picture, a nice gesture since we are terrible at selfies and we don’t have many photos of us together (this one’s for you Joyce).
One of the towers is the named Zeitturm (Time Tower) and it was purposely designed to accommodate the city clock. This tower was built in 1403. The clock dial measures 3-4 meters “carried” by two giant figures painted on the facade. Placed in such a way that one could read the time from afar, the digits were made large enough to be seen by fishermen on the lake. Since the late Middle Ages the Time Tower has had the privilege of the first strike; its clock chimes the hour one minute before any other public clock in Luzern.
We strolled back down the hill to the river and snapped photos along the way.
We are on move tomorrow so I thought it would be a good idea to find our departure place. Although I had intended to purchase train tickets to Milan, I unknowingly booked bus tickets to Arth-Goldau, Switzerland. There we will then get on the train to Milan. The bus station is a few blocks past the train station and now we know where we’ll need to go tomorrow, about a 15 minute walk from the Airbnb. Right near our Airbnb is a sculpture, so I had to stop and say hi to the goatherd.
After a buffet lunch at Tibits we walked back to the Airbnb. The rain finally caught up with us so staying in for the afternoon was perfect as it afforded us an opportunity to do some laundry, which was a challenge because all the instructions to use the washer and dryer in the building’s laundry room were in German. And you had to open up a storage cabinet that had meters for each machine that you had to feed with Swiss franc coins to purchase minutes of time (yes, even for the washer). After loading the washer and figuring out how to start it, I stood watching the washer for a few minutes, it was a front loader with a window. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t seeing any water. Finally, I noticed that I needed to turn a faucet on from the sink nearby. That fixed the no water problem. Using the dryer was easier. But we have been equipment challenged at the Airbnb because we couldn’t figure out how to use the coffee machine this morning.
We went around the corner for dinner at the Bistro du Theater, a nice little restaurant. Christine said that she wanted a big salad for dinner and amazingly this bistro had a whole page of salad bowls on the menu. That was perfect and we both enjoyed our dinner.
Now it’s time to get packed up and be ready to go on to our next adventure, Milano, in the morning.
