Sunday, July 27, 2008

Luzern und Zürich

The Golden Panorama Train Ride
The train ride from Interlaken to Luzern, known as the golden panorama for its magnificant views throughout the 2 hour train ride. The train passes through the most beautiful sceneries and the most natural landscapes in the country.
What I always found beautiful was the countryside houses at the foot of the mountains or by the lakes. It really resembles those pictures you would see in children story books.
During the train ride, I was sitting next to these 2 girls who were travelling to Luzern to meet their relative. What caught my attention was the way they dressed up, like the character Heidi, with plaits and wearing traditional Swiss clothing, something which is very rare to come by these days. And soon we were talking with them asking me a lot of... kiddy interesting questions.

Luzern
Like Interlaken, Luzern is also a German speaking region in Switzerland. Lonely Planet said that Luzern is the only place in Switzerland that has a bit of everything, old houses, bridges, churches, a old town wall with watch towers, a river that cuts through the town and some snow capped mountains. And how true it is!


Wasserturm und Kapellebrücke - Watertower (on the left) and the Chapel Bridge: the oldest wooden bridge in Europe, constructed in 1333.

As you walk through the Kapellebrücke, you would see these paintings on the roof of the bridge which tell the story of Luzern. However, some of the paintings were being destroyed together with a majority of the bridge in a 1993 fire. Although the bridge were rebuilt, the damaged paintings were taken down.

Another highlight is to walk along the remaining fortified wall, and climb up the watch towers. From there a top view of the town can be seen, like the picture below. The mountain in the background is the Mt Pilatus, with an elevation of 2132m, overlooking the Luzern.

Like most buildings in the Altstadt in European cities, they are beautifully painted with murals like this: As I walked along the river where all the most expensive eateries are usually stacked along, my attention was turned to this menu. It says. Today: Nasi Goreng - Asian Ricedish with pork and vegetables, for 19 Swiss Franc!!!! And appraently it was quite popular as I head many people asking about the dish, whether it is "scharf" (spicy) or not. If you've been here for a while in Europe you would discover that actually most of the Europeans cannot tahan spicy food.


The Löwendenkmal (Lion Memorial)

This memorial is actually dedicated to the Swiss guards who were killed in 1792 during the period of the French Revolution. On August 10 1792, the Tuileries Palace in Paris were stormed by the Parisian mod in a bid to hunt for the royal family, in particular Marie Antionette. The Swiss guards (who have been mecenaries for centuries) who were at the palace defending were being slaughered while the royal family managed to escape through the gardens. Notice that there is a spear through the lion and it looks as though it is dying.


Luzern, although small a tour of the important sights can be completed in like 2 to 3 hours, is still nonetheless important because of tourism as well as its central location. From Luzern, many other Swiss towns, especially those in the south can be easily reached.

Zürich - zu (too) rich?

Needless to say, this is a German-speaking Canton of Switzerland. Actually many people who have been to Zürich said that Zürich is a city and there's really nothing to see. Even the SEP students who are there complained that its quite boring and the things there are really expensive. I fully agree with them, but since Zürich was along the way back into Germany that evening, I decided to see how boring it is.

The Bahnhofstraße is the street where for the first time I saw so many Swiss banks concentrated together (something like Robinson Road in Raffles Place). And popular rumour says that underneath in the basements of the bank vault stores huge amount of gold and silver, like the UBS bank building below:

Also, this street is lined up with designer brands of anykind you can think of. And prices are damn ex naturally. Even Bata, which has a store along the street, sells shoes for like 150 Francs. And to think they acutally shelf the shoes outside.

The river above leads to the Zürich lake. If you ask me what Switzerland is, I would think its lakes and mountains. Notice under tha red umbrella there are some people sunbathing. These people are all ladies, and they are sunbathing topless. In fact it is a ladies only area, because the entrance reads Frauenbad.

Zürich Lakes

In Germany, one can get tired of seeing Churches, Castles, Palaces and half-timbered houses. In Switzerland I think its the lakes and mountains that may bore a tourist. However because I was there only for 3 days it was still a relatively short time to bore me.

One of the high-class alleys in Zürich. Behind you see a church tower (St Peters) with the biggest clock face in Europe at 8.something metres of diameter. Cannot remember exactly.

That's it for the Schweiz. If I were to return to the Schweiz again, I would definitely want to go to Interlaken once again. By the way the tourism board actually recognises frequent visitors who return to Interlaken over the past 20 years. You'd just need to go to the tourism office and tell them and they will give you some form of recognition. How they verify, I have no idea myself. Anyway, besides Interlaken, I would want to also visit places like Zug, Brienz as well as Lugano. And hopefully meet interesting experiences along the way, like meeting the 2 Heidis. Who knows, they would have grown up by then.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mannheim08a/24JulyLuzern

http://picasaweb.google.com/mannheim08a/24JulyZRich

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