Zürich Weekend - Part 2

Luzern/Zürich

Sunday morning, Happy Birthday to Shelby! It was raining and windy and gross outside when we got up, so we decided to get out of the big city and drive about 40 minutes to another famous city in Switzerland, Luzern. Luzern is not nearly as big or modern as Zürich and has much more of a romantic, laid back charm to it. We lucked out and when we got to Luzern the rain had let up and it was quite nice for a little while. Just long enough for us to wander the river and some its famous bridges. Two of the oldest covered bridges in Europe are here and they are beautiful. The Spreuerbrücke was completed in 1408 and took over the title of oldest covered bridge from the Chapel Bridge, originally built in 1333 but was restored after it caught fire in 1993. Both bridges have amazing old paintings in the roof and you can see the history in the wooden sides and rails.

We visited a Starbucks along the river for our second coffee fix of the day. We visited a fun souvenier shop where we bought fun stuff to remember our trip. Then we wandered over to the Stadtkeller Restaurant for lunch. It is a traditional Swiss folklore restaurant that has a show along with a meal. We listened to the performers play alphorns, cowbells, saws, accordians, and even coins in ceramic bowls! It was awesome! The food was great too. We both shared Swiss cheese fondue with bread for an appetizer. Then we got salads, entrees and dessert. I had veal strips in mushroom sauce with Rösti (traditional Swiss potato dish) and Shelby had roasted chicken in balsamic sauce with Rösti. Colin was very sick of sitting by the time we even got to the restaurant because all the wet/rain kept him confined to his stroller. He did pretty good though, he danced and imitated the performers and applauded when they were done.
Here are some videos of our lunch...
Colin clapping and dancing to the music:


Playing the alphorns:


Colin pretending to play the alphorn:


A guy playing a saw, very cool!


Playing music with coins in ceramic bowls (look on the projector screen to see the coin inside the bowl):


Colin jamming out in the stroller:


Yodeling


Shortly after lunch the sky opened up and started POURING on us. We hiked up to see the famous Löwendenkmal, or Dying Lion monument anyway. It is there to commemorate the Swiss killed in 1792 dueing the French Revolution. Then we headed up to the old city wall to climb up another tower for a view. After that we decided we were wet enough and stopped by Starbucks one last time and then headed back towards Zürich. We went to a place called Trampolino to let Colin run off some energy. He had a ball of course...look at the pics, wouldn't you?

After that we had to head over to the Zürich Hooters to add another photo to Colin's collection. We drove downtown and found a public parkhaus. The sign on the wall as you drove in said that it was open on Sunday's until 6:30pm. Now it was 6:50 at this time. However, it was a public parkhaus, and they are usually open 24 hours, and the gates were all open. So we pushed the button to spit out a ticket and it gave us a ticket with the time stamp 18:50 on it and the little arm raised up and let us through. We went to Hooters, ate and got our picture and then headed back to the car. When we got to the garage ALL the entrances (for both cars and pedestrians) are closed with metal rolladen gats and locked. Um, shit. I guess they were serious about the 6:30 thing...why in the hell did it let me IN at 6:50 then?! So we walk all around the entire block/building and not a single open entrance. So off to the train station we go, because even though we are only about 3km from our hotel we are tired and don't have a stroller for Colin. We hop on the train and then had to take the train back down to the parkhaus the next morning to get our car back. You don't even want to know what it cost to leave my stupid car in the parkhaus overnight in insanely expensive Switzerland. I'll tell you anyway...53 %$&!*& Franks! I wanted to scream. Lesson learned...regardless of whether or not the entrance gate lets you in the parkhaus after hours...DO NOT PARK THERE!