Sorry this has taken so long to write- I’ve been drowning in final papers and tests!
City 4- Lucerne (or Luzern, c’est comme vous voulez, and it’s in Switzerland for all those who were wondering)
Let me just preface this by saying that none of the people I went to Switzerland with were truly excited about going. They were just humoring me.
The train ride from Rome to Lucerne was the longest train ride that one could possibly take in daylight, and the morale in the group was considerably low; until we got into Switzerland…
The scenery immediately changed from cute Italian towns and vast vineyards to the most magnificent mountain range ever imaginable. Boring scenery shots? I’ve got plenty. How could I not try to capture the Swiss Alps in a pocket-sized camera for me to take out and look at whenever I wanted? Sorry mom, I know you like “people shots”, but the Swiss Alps count as people.
Our train pulled into the Lucerne station in the evening. We followed the crowd of people to the front of the station and headed out into the crisp Swiss air. It was breathtaking. The town overlooks a beautiful lake that reflects the snow-capped Alps at all times of the day. We looked at our map and traversed the darling bridge rolling out from the front of the train station to the center of town. It ended up being a pretty tiny town, so it wasn’t hard to find our hotel.
When we walked into our hotel (note how I say hotel and NOT hostel for the first time), we were met by two smiling women in black lady-suits behind a sleek black desk with free gummy-treats on the counter. The floor was dark-stained wood. There was an oil-rubbed bronze spiral staircase to our right, and a comfy looking sitting area to our left. The smell of really expensive but delicious Japanese cuisine was wafting in from the restaurant connected to the hotel. Sarah immediately said, “Are you serious? Is this for real?” Yes, it was for real, it wasn’t a dream. Your welcome, travel buddies.
Our room was on the second floor. We went over to the elevator expecting it to be a normal doll-sized European elevator, but we were greeted by a giant/unnecessarily-large American style lift. We got to our floor and found our room at the end of the hallway. Eagerly opening the door, we found a very large room with king-sized bunk beds. You could fully stand under the top bunk. It was unreal. There were down comforters and pillows. I almost started to tear up.
We got ourselves situated and headed out for some dinner. Regardless of the fact that Switzerland has its own form of currency that is currently weaker than the US dollar, everything was ridiculously expensive. We walked around looking at menus outside of cute restaurants and decided we didn’t want to spend $20 on dinner the first night. We ended up a McDonald’s. I’m not proud of that, but I’m a college student, I just can’t deny it sometimes.
The next day we walked around the town, got some wonderful pastries for breakers, and just sat with our feet dangling over the lake for hours. Really, that’s all we did for the day we were there, we sat and stared at the beauty around us. It was the best way to wind down the backpacking trip across four countries.
We packed our bags and headed back to Paris the next morning with Swiss goodies in hand for the long train ride home. Even though it was a marvelous town with a magnificent view (and all other superlatives that one can think of), we were pretty glad to be going back to Paris and its pollution. We didn’t realize it until then, but Paris has really become a place we call home, way more than I personally thought it would.
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