Travelogue Part Six

One of the bad things about the whirlwind style of tour is the fact that you don't always get to spend a lot of the daylight hours in your city of destination for the day. That's partly because it was winter and we were only a couple of days away from the winter solstice while we were in Lucerne but not much else you can do if you want to see eight countries in less than two weeks. Fortunately, cities like Lucerne are pretty regardless of the time of day.

A beautiful pair of doors we stumbled upon while walking around the city.

Also stumbled across the Magic X Erotic Megastore. Apparently this is a chain of stores in Germany and Switzerland from what I saw when I did a web search. I don't speak German or French but it wasn't hard to figure out what they were selling. No need for Google to translate things.

Ulla Popken is in the house! Ulla Popken does mail order business in the US but they've got 320 stores in Europe. At my house it's more Ulla Popken than Magic X. Probably a good thing - heart patient, you know.

We took a boat ride on Lake Lucerne first thing the following morning. Rather overcast but the lake was calm and the captain explained the history and the attractions of the area as we motored around the lake. Like Lugano, Lucerne is a place for the wealthy to reside and vacation. The captain pointed out a hotel where Sean Connery, Sophia Loren and other celebs were known to stay. Probably not the kind of place I'd fit in even if I could afford it. They probably wouldn't feel very comfortable traveling in my circle either though. But Sophia is always welcome to stop by when she's in the neighborhood.

We made one more stop prior to departing for Paris, the Lion Monument. The monument is a memorial to the Swiss Guard that were killed during the French Revolution in 1792. It's a beautiful piece of stone carving both in design and execution. The link will explain the symbolism of the dying lion. It's a very nice tribute to brave soldiers. It'd be nice if some day we wouldn't need to commemorate any more dead soldiers. Seems like all of European history is the history of war. Switzerland is the oldest neutral country, having been so since 1815. That makes a lot of sense when you factor in the costs of lives and dollars lost going to war every 20-30 years like we have in this country. 

Switzerland officially uses the Swiss Franc rather than Euros, by the way. Most of the touristy places will accept Euros, which makes it easy. I bought some chocolate for the Missus and the lady opened the drawer to make change and one side of the drawer was in Swiss Francs and the other was in Euros. When you're a small country wedged in between a couple of Euro Zone countries, helps to be flexible. Or maybe neutral is a better word.

Next stop Paris.