Off to Explore Switzerland

Day 5

GOOD MORNING FRANCE 🇫🇷

Up early this morning to get ourselves underway and probably still a bit of jet lag. Anyway we will have plenty of time to get ready this morning. Just to let you know the sun doesn’t rise here until 8:30am and sets around 7:30pm. The forecast for today is light rain for most of the day, we will have to see if that is the same in Switzerland 🇨🇭. We will be travelling most of the day in the bus 🚌 so the weather shouldn’t effect that much. Yodel-lay-it-too. Just practising my yodelling.

Well it was a nice long drive from Dijon to Lucerne in Switzerland and the day was very overcast, but the sun did make its way out on occasion. The country side was beautiful and it was great to see the small villages and the snow covered alps. On arrival in Lucerne we went to see the injured lion and then off to the city centre. Magnificent lake, bridges, buildings and shops. The pictures will tell you a better storey. Sadly we are out of Switzerland 🇨🇭 tomorrow and onto Italy 🇮🇹.

Lucerne, a compact city in Switzerland known for its preserved medieval architecture, sits amid snowcapped mountains on Lake Lucerne. Its colorful Altstadt (Old Town) is bordered on the north by 870m Museggmauer (Musegg Wall), a 14-century rampart. The covered Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge), built in 1333, links the Aldstadt to the Reuss River's right bank.

The Lion Monument, or the Lion of Lucerne, is a rock relief in Lucerne, Switzerland, designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen and hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

The Bridges
The world-famous timber bridge Lucerne’s most photographed destination, it being held in high esteem by visitors...
The Chapel Bridge these days links the Lucerne Theatre on the south bank of the River Reuss with St. Peter’s Chapel on Rathausquai, passing the Water Tower on the way. The devastation that caught the world’s attention was one that no one would have wished to have happened.

Disaster strikes

A major part of the Chapel Bridge caught fire in the night of 18 August 1993. All that could be saved were the two bridgeheads and the Water Tower. The remainder of the bridge was rebuilt in a record eight months, allowing the «new» Chapel Bridge to be reopened on 14 April 1994. Never before has Central Switzerland experienced such an incident as that which befell the emblem of an entire country and moved so many people around the world. When all is said and done, the Chapel Bridge – an incredible 650 years old – served not only in its early days as a means of crossing the river on foot, but also as part of the town’s fortifications. Forming the bridgeheads were the chapel on the right-hand bank and the Freienhof (now gone) on the left. Immediately recognisable when viewed from the air, the Chapel Bridge and Spreuer Bridge appear to bind the town together.

No bridge without pictures, no pictures without the bridge

Just as significant as the bridge itself was the fascinating cycle of paintings which adorned it and lent it the requisite depth of character. The chronicler of the town of Lucerne, Renward Cysat (1545–1614), spent years studying the history of both ancient Switzerland and Christendom and formulating a concept for the pictorial decoration. The bridge was to describe how great good fortune had guided the many accomplishments of the Old Confederacy. Since it proved impossible to fund the venture from the public purse, well-to-do citizens were called upon to sponsor one or more of the panels. Cysat finalised his ideas in 1611, whereupon work could begin. The pictures were first restored in 1646. In 1726, the town had to appoint a watchman to keep an eye on the bridge and prevent youths from constantly vandalising the pictures. Prior to the fire in 1993, 147 of the original 158 panels were still in existence; 110 of them were directly affected by the fire that destroyed the bridge, of which some two-thirds either went up in smoke or suffered severe damage.

Apparently we lost one of our tour group today or so other members in our group thought, but when the bus was ready to leave, there he was in the bus while his mates were out there looking for him. Vicki is coming down with a cold and not feeling the best… more drugs required and mum is still hanging on quite well.
We sat around at the hotel bar last night and have a few drinks with other guests nothing like getting to know other people and then most of us ended at the same place for dinner 🥘. Great night was had. We also found out that our cruise 🚢 has been adjusted because of the conflict in the Middle East, so we won’t be visiting as many ports. Anyway we will see how we go. Off to bed until tomorrow.

GOOD NIGHT SWITZERLAND 🇨🇭Weiterlesen