Luzern

We woke up Sunday morning in Zurich after a tough night of sleep. Despite going to bed at 10:30, we were both wide awake at 2:30 in the morning and were up for an hour chatting. At some point during the night, I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time ever which was pretty terrifying.

We decided not to rush around too much as the trains between Zurich and Luzern are frequent. We ate our breakfast of leftovers and went down to the lobby for coffee. On the bright side, they had a real espresso machine with fresh ground beans for us to use. On the down side, it was self service and still 6chfs a coffee.

Speaking of CHFs. We’ve esentially been jokingly calling them “chefs” and then as we are paying the girl says 12 francs and Rebecca exclaims “oh we’re paying in francs now!” Which I then had to explain to her that’s what the F stands for in chfs. V embarrassing for her but funny for both of us.

Light breakfast and lots of get ready time and then on to the train station. One hour train ride to Luzern and about a 15 minute walk to our jail cell. The Barabas Hotel is an old jail that they converted and their tag line is “sleep behind bars”. Turns out we booked the old jail library which was a suite in comparison.

These are our “two beds”. The room was very funny and we laughed a lot upon arrival. The head board from that bed is our bathroom, a tiny stand up shower and tiny toilet. It was odd, and definitely glad we only stayed one night. The doors to the other rooms were freaky.

We headed to lunch at an adorable little spot called Bunderland. It was a Swiss German restaurant. We ordered venison, ravioli, and a cranberry chestnut sauce, baked cheese that was essentially a tiny fondue, and some sort of sausage meat roll situation. All of them tasted good going in but more on that later.

We then set off to walk the old city walls and do the Rick Steves walking tour. Luzern is not very big so we saw a lot in one afternoon.

On the walk up to the city walls we saw so much green grass and our first Swiss cow!

The city walls included a lot of steps. We almost didn’t climb the tower when we saw the steps but the 80 year old woman ahead of us seemed to have no problem so we had to get it done.

More funny than climbing all the steps was descending. We were both wearing comfy boots with a small heel and it seems that these stairs were so steep and tiny that sneakers would have been a much more practical choice. We looked pretty ridiculous walking down the stairs and laughing.

Once we got to the bottom we headed over to see a gigantic lion carving. It was a somber lion as he had been struck by a spear. The pictures don’t do a good job of showing how large it is.

We wandered the city streets, stopping and reading Rick Steves along the way. Saw some cool building murals/frescos, a nice church with a big organ, and walked across some wooden bridges at the exact time it was raining.

We had seen a lot so we headed back to the room to rest before dinner. But as we rested, I started developing a tummy ache. Rebecca had a bubbly tummy too but she was getting hungry. I didn’t have an appetite but thought maybe a glass of wine would fix me.

It did not. I spent the next 10 hours ejecting every bit of food and liquid from my body while sharing a jail cell with my bestie. Around 2am I was sure I might be dying. Luckily that was the worst of it.

Rebecca brought me back to the room and got herself a delicious pizza and brought me back some rosemary bread. I couldn’t eat it (and still haven’t) but it smells delicious.

No further pictures from Luzern day. I have survived. But one star, do not recommend food poisoning on vacation.