Lucerne

I'm currently on the train to Engelberg, where I am going to a ski camp for foreign students studying in Switzerland for a week. Since I had to change trains at Lucerne, I decided to leave a couple of hours early so I could do a little sight seeing. I had been to Lucerne before, but it was for a very short amount of time, most of which was spent looking for medication and gifts. This time I gave myself three hours, which was plenty of time to walk around the old town and part of the lake.

Lucerne is a very cute little Swiss town, at least the centre of it is, I can't say much about the surrounding suburbs. It reminds me a little of Geneva, at least the newer lake front does, with the same trees and same type of buildings on the waterfront. The rest of it is fairly different, which is unsurprising considering their different geography and history, though there is the Swiss factor, which makes then similar, all the souvenirs are the same, and they have the same supermarket and clothing stores. I don't know much about the different histories, definitely not more than Wikipedia could tell you if you are interested, but the most striking difference is that Lucerne is in the German part of the Switzerland, which means that my broken French is even more useless here than it is in Geneva. Ascetically, I think Lucerne's old town is much prettier, basically due to the painted facades of many of the buildings, some of which were very intricate, like the one below:

The scenery around Lucerne is also much more impressive than Geneva, as it is surrounded by some very high mountains, which today were just visible through the haze. A cruise on the lake on a clear day would be spectacular. I decided it was too cold and windy today to try. I also think that walking around the main sights of the town is more interesting than Geneva. The two covered wooden bridges with their painted panels are very quaint and different in terms of bridges:

Like really. Two covered wooden bridges? One of which links to a building. Some planning authority at the time must have really hated the rain and snow. They do have character though, particularly with their morbid painted panels. It is also very cool that part of the town fortifications are still standing, and that they look just like what city walls should look like, with the towers and all, as you can see the back of the previous photo. It is a pity that they are only open in summer for walking along. It was also interesting to note that when the wall crosses over a road in the old town, they cut an arch in the wall, just wide enough for one car to past through, even though it was a two way road. I guess they didn't want to disturb the integrity of the wall too much.

Speaking of walls, another of the sights to see in the town is this sculpture of a lion carved into a stone wall which I think also used to act as a defense for the town. The lion commemorates the Swiss mercenaries who were killed in Les Tullaries during the French revolution. It is a fairly poignant sculpture, particularly with the reflecting pool, though the construction and the gaggles of tourists kind of spoiled the atmosphere of a memorial a little. I found myself contemplating about the logistics of mercenaries, I wonder if there is a clause in their contracts about death and what happened to their salary, though I guess the same could be asked about armies today. I guess the difference with mercenaries is that you don't care about the cause you are fighting for, you are there for the money. Though the same could be said about the armed forces today as well. I guess the real difference is honour. You are fighting somebody else's battle, something not related to you in any way shape or form. I wonder what happens if both sides of a battle uses mercenaries, could you end up facing a friend in the battle?

Anyway, we are approching Engelberg and I need to pack the laptop away... In summary, visit Lucerne if you can, it is a nice little tourist destination, a good combination of Swiss town and mountain, particularly if you have the time to go up one of the few peaks in the area.