Lovely Luzern!

We went for a long weekend to Luzern Switzerland to visit Grainne, Paul and Mark. What a nice town!
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It was really hard not to come home with new Swiss watches though!
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Here we are in front of the Chapel Bridge (locally known as the Kapellbrücke). It was first built in the 14th century. It's the oldest wooden bridge in Europe in fact.

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It was burned down in 1993, but then quickly re-built.

. We flew into Basel on a Saturday morning and got into Luzern about noon-time. Once we had dropped all our stuff off at their house we went for a really nice walk along the lake to the old part of town.

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This is a view through the beautiful trees of Lake Luzern to the Swiss Alps.

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Here is Bertel Thorvaldsen's famous carving of a dying lion commemorating the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution in Paris. Click here for the wiki-link with additional info.
.The tower on the bridge is 140' tall. It was used as a prison, torture chamber, watch tower and a treasury for the city. Today it's used as the guild hall of the artillery association.

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Here's an evening view from the other side. It's the most frequently photographed landmark in Luzern.
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Sunday morning we opted to head over to Mount Pilatus to take in some of the Swiss Alps. Grainne and Paul must take nearly all their visitors here.

Thanks for indulging yet another set of visitors!

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This is the last of three cable car sections that brought us to the visitor center on the top. Pretty steep, huh!

.We got some really great views of the Alps from up here.
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Here's a guy hiking up with his two pups. We met the dogs up top and MAN they were some big dogs! Probably a good 120lbs a piece!
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We climbed the stairs to highest point open this time of year. Here are Grainne and Mark with a view to their house in the background. Their house is just about in the middle of the picture.
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We decided to hike down one of the 3 gondola sections. Once we started though, we found the trail a little icy and needed some high tech trekking poles for balance on the way down.
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We only got a little off track on our way back to the last gondola ride. We got down with just enough time to get back into town for our dinner plans.
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Monday we headed out on our own and decided to take a ferry ride on Lake Luzern to see a few other towns on the lake. We loved this picture of the huge Swiss flag with Mt. Pilatus in the background.

We spent most of our time in a town called Weggis. This is the crest of Weggis. It must have been a fishing town at some point, but it didn't say in wikipedia.
. Here's another beautiful pic of Pilatus from Weggis.

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Just a nice moss-covered fence post here in Weggis. We try for a few artsy pictures every now and then.
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We couldn't find the name of this statue in Weggis, but thought it was beautiful against the mountains in the background.

.Here's a neat set of sculptures. It looks like the metamorphosis of a cube into a sphere... or a sphere into a cube if you were on the other side. Pretty artsy little town here.
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After our boat tour of Lake Luzern, we went back into the old town for some food and a little shopping. Here we are enjoying a local favorite - cheese fondue.

.We visited Switzerland on the nicest weekend of the year so far. It was so nice, we put the top down in Grainne's car! In FEBRUARY!!!!!!!!!!

.This is the view from the deck in Grainne & Paul's place. Pretty stunning view.
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And finally one last view of Luzern by night.

Thank you Grainne and Paul for your hospitality.