Thursday 28th April
Could not have a pee at the station yesterday as we only had Euros. These Swiss keyboards are a pain in the butt. We had a late start and wandered around looking for a bank to change monez to Swiss franks. Visited the Gletschergarten of Lucerne which was very interesting. We saw various facets of the Ice Age. Lucern, 20 million years ago was a tropical beach. We saw fossilised animals of that age together with fish and shells, and ripple marks in sandstone shaped by waves and currents locked in the rock. There was also a fossilised palm frond embedded in rock, which supports the theory of Lucern being a palm beach. There was an area of boulders that had been dragged beneath the glacier as it was melting and these rocks formed holes in the rock, due to the pressure from the melting ice water. In the museum a little wooden house has been constructed and showed how people lived in the 1800 in Lucern. What beautiful woodwork. There is a large lion carved into solid rock in the garden showing he had been injured or slain. This sculpture was created in 1820/21 in memory of the Swiss heroes who gave their lives at Tuileries in Paris 1792.
On our way back to the hotel we hopped on the city train tour. We learned that Lucerne had a fire in 1993 which destroyed a portion of Chapel Bridge (originally built in 1333). The tower alongside the bridge was a jail and torture chamber in the 14th century.Switzerland verz pretty and green picture postcard. Old buildings in >Lucerne, originally known as the city of lights, are clean orderly 60,000 residents. People dress well and we have not seen any beggars. Switzerland we have found is not a member of the EU. We noticed in Amsterdam that banks do not have access to public unless upstairs, downstairs and locked doors. Must be a securitz issue.
ATM the way to go. We also visited the hall of mirrors at the garden - what a hoot but decided to come out, as it was seriously bad maze.