3 Days in Lucerne

Mestre- Lucerne

We left Mestre at 9 and, as the traffic was very light, we arrived in Lucerne in the early afternoon. We settled into our 4-star hotel paying 295 euros with breakfast for 2 nights in a double room, while our friends had booked at the Hotel Wilden Mann of the Romantik hotel chain, nice but very expensive. We took a walk in the centre just in time to buy chocolate and good-luck marzipan pigs, since the shops closed at 5 pm and stayed that way on the 1st and 2nd too, despite the tourists. Swiss precision!!! The city is very bright, it overlooks the clean and navigable Lake of the Four Cantons, crossed by very distinctive covered wooden bridges. The Chapel Bridge, which in '93 was partly destroyed by a fire, and the Reuss Bridge. There's a fin-de-siècle atmosphere thanks to the majestic hotels along the lakefront that recall that Queen Victoria, Wagner and Goethe, among others, stayed here.

In the evening, a big dinner at the Hotel Wilden Mann with nouvelle cuisine (expensive but not very enjoyable for us Italians) and champagne accompanied by a duo playing very sweet music. All very romantic.

Lucerne

On the morning of New Year's Day we wandered around the old town, little squares overlooked by frescoed buildings, the walls with intact towers, the churches—the Jesuit one and St. Leodegar—the lakefront, while in the afternoon a visit to the new KKL (Kunstmuseum Luzern), a modern art museum that also houses an auditorium seating about 1800 and a bar-restaurant overlooking the lake. In the evening, dinner in a very romantic little place near the cathedral, the prices unfortunately always very high.

Lucerne - Lugano-Mestre

On Sunday morning we began the journey home and stopped in Lugano for a walk along the lake; I didn't much like this famous spot, it seemed a bit cold to me despite the splendid sunshine. It was a different way to spend New Year's, leaving behind all of 2004 and its disasters. Happy 2005 to everyone.