Lucern in the rain

Talk about a surprising change in weather. The temperature yesterday was a lovely high of around 30 degrees, but today it was 23 in the afternoon and 17 by early evening. We were not prepared for this drop even though after I fell asleep last night it was hailing! In the middle of summer!

Today actually got colder as the day progressed, the rain has been slowly picking up momentum. Only a moment ago we have had lightening and thunder.

Today has been our day trip to Luzern, before we embarked we spoke with a fellow traveller from Beijing who said Luzern is beautiful and is a must see.
How about you decide after these pictures?

I must say the weather does not do Luzern justice.

This yellow umbrella pilgrim cannot be without her little bit of BYO sunshine in the rain. I didn't manage to take a photo of my little yellow umbrella, maybe next time!

Surprisingly we found that Luzern has a greater Catholic presence in terms of the churches there.

Here is St Leodegar Church.

My favorite part of this church is the Alter of Souls. When I came into the church, I felt drawn to this alter. The crucified Jesus lies in the arms of Mary. On each side is pictures of saints and their dedication to our Lord. There is an immense sadness and urgency depicted to the onlookers. I was reminded of the great importance of the Redemption.

Below this alter one can light a candle for yourself or another, there is also a little accompanying prayer card that I thought was beautiful.

The pouring rain did not deter us from our sightseeing, we went up to the Dying Lion of Luzern, or commonly known as the Lion rock, dedicated to the heroic death of the Swiss mercenaries at the Tuileries in 1792. It is hewn out of natural rock. The giant monument is very moving, perhaps even more so in the pouring rain.

We also trekked up to the old walls. I found the walls a bit disappointing as the trees blocked a lot of the views and the walls itself is not well maintained. I was quite surprised after coming from Zurich where I found all the history there meticulously looked after.

We had carrot and orange soup and apple macaroni for lunch.

The food sounds different but I found both quite lovely, especially the soup as the savory and citric flavors was balanced very well.

Unlike Zurich, there are a lot more tourist that feeds the birds in Luzern. You can see them all gather as soon as a human walks by with anything that remotely looking like food.

The weather got to us eventually so we visited the Natural Museum. We met the security guard there!

(it was for an interactive insect display. Was lots of fun for the kids!)

I had to take a photo of the Red Squirrel! Look how punk it looks!

The fungi display.

Oh, and while we were struggling through the rain we spotted this three wheel car. Even smaller than the Smart Car!

We decided to return to Zurich as it was really too wet to stay on, it was regretful that we could not take the boat to tour the Luzern Lake as there is a couple of beautiful villages that can be viewed from the boat.

We found the food market at the train station when we came back so we purchased some grapes to eat later on tonight. It is now waiting for us in the fridge.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Switzerland, our next stop will be UK. Strange how time flies, maybe the next two and a half months will pass by just as quickly. The past few days in a backpackers has made me realize that many people chooses to stay at these sorts of budget accommodations, even whole families. When we started I was full of anticipations of noisy drunken youths who will wake me in the middle of the night, but it has not been so, in fact just like Zurich, the experience has been surprisingly peaceful.

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Location:City backpackers Zurich