Lucerne – Switzerland 2004
Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s up the alps we go. What was supposed to be a three hour drive north to Lucerne (ah yes, the famous 3 hour tour) turned into an all day affair.
We knew we’d have to stop at the Swiss border and buy a “road use” sticker for 30€, so unlike many of the other really pissed off people in the que, we were willing to pay and move on. The Swiss have the nifty system of charging a road tax at a yearly rate for residents or an abbreviated cost for car rentals or leases. There are no tolls. They just hit you up front. Actually, it’s not that bad if you’re going to be driving in Switzerland for a month or more. For us, though, we were spending one night in Lucerne and the next day we’d be back in France so it was a bit pricey for the 250 km of roads we were going to put our wheels across. But then, if you figure in the hours we just sat in idle traffic due to the road construction that seemed to consume all of the Swiss highways at one time, I guess you could say we got our money’s worth. The Swiss countryside was an abundance of rolling green hills coming off the high Alps. Gretchen said she had always imagined that this was the kind of country her ancestors came from; actually they came from the hills north of Prague which look nothing like this. But as I was saying, we got to see a lot of it. It took us 90 minutes to crawl 10 km in the approach to the tunnel through the St Gottardo Pass (I think Saint Gottardo is the patron Saint of traffic jams). And, of course, to make matters even worse, it was raining.
By the time we reached Lucerne, I had one whopping headache.
We made it into the center of town and managed to find the Reuss River. We could even see our hotel down river. We just couldn’t get there. We kept on driving back and forth over the river, but there were no car roads. Everything was blocked off for pedestrian/tourist traffic. I was more than ready to bag the hotel and head back out to the highway. We finally stopped at a watch store to ask directions and they handed me a city map. That was all we needed. We drove a few kilometers down river, over another bridge and got the car within 3 blocks of the hotel. At the check in, the receptionist told us, don’t worry about the pedestrian only street signs, just drive the car right up to the hotel and drop off our bags. Thank you very much….

We originally thought we’d have most of the afternoon to explore Lucerne but by the time we checked into the hotel, it was about 4pm. And it was Saturday, so most of the retails shops closed by 1pm.  But there was still enough time to walk through the old streets and across the old bridges. This is one of your perfect picturesque, northern European tourist towns with little pedestrian streets and gothic squares filled with couture clothing, swiss watches and of course lots of chocolate.

The big attraction over the water is the Kapelibrucke (Chapel bridge). It’s the oldest wooden bridge in Europe, originally built in the early 14th century, but let’s face it, it’s a wooden bridge. In 1993, a fire broke out and destroyed about 80% of it. It’s since been rebuilt, and looks like the old bridge, but for us the real beauty was the Spreuerbrucke, a little further down the river. This 15th century wooden bridge still has the 17th century paintings by Kaspar Meglinger.  In true medieval style, they show a chronical of the plague that devasted Europe in the 14th century. Some of the gabled paintings of the history of Lucerne from the Chapel Bridge still remain, but most of them were destroyed in the fire. And none of them are as interesting as the Plague paintings of Spreurbrucke.

Another great find for us was in the 17th century Am-Rhyn house. The house is currently the home of the city’s Picasso museum. There are a few paintings, a few ceramic pieces, but the highlight of the gallery is the photo collection. In 1956, photo journalist David Duncan Douglas, was introduced to Pablo Picasso while Picasso was having a bath. Picasso was 77 at the time. The two became fast friends and from 1956-68, Douglas created the most wonderful photographic view of life with the Picasso family. This intimate portrait reveals a loving family man we’ve never seen before. We always hear the stories about Picasso the womanizer or Picasso the insensitive brut, but these photos are proof of Picasso the loving father, husband and friend of Gary Cooper. The cast of characters includes Pablo, Jacqueline (from before they were married on through their wedding day), the children, the dogs, the houses in Cannes and Aix en Provence and cameo appearances from Jean Cocteau to Picasso’s tailor.

We spent the night in a room overlooking the river, in a Swiss style sleigh bed covered in blue and gold plaid. Gretchen described it as an “oversized doggy bed”.
And the next morning we were off to France.