"I'm sorry, how much does that cost?"

Beer and a latte on Mt. Pilatus

As our time here in the UK is winding down, Katie and I are doing our best to make the most of living close to so many great travel destinations.  As a result, we have just returned from a 4-day weekend in Switzerland.  It’s not very often you get to say “We’re going to Switzerland for the weekend,” but it’s not very often you get to do a lot of things we have done this past year and a half.  We decided to stay in the smaller town of Lucerne, which is about an hour south of Zurich and set at the base of Mount Pilatus, one of the Swiss Alps. 

Lucerne and Chapel Bridge behind us

We were excited to have found cheap flights from London but with that, came a very long night of traveling before we arrived in Lucerne on Saturday morning.   Upon arriving, there were a few things that struck us right away.  For example, we immediately noticed how incredibly modern, clean and safe everything was.  This goes for the small amount of time we were in Zurich as well as Lucerne.  The streets are very clean and everything from ticketing counters to information desks were electronic and in multiple languages.  This came in especially handy since 75% of the Lucerne population speaks German as their first language.  Fortunately for us, like most people in Europe the majority of people we met also spoke English. 

Chapel Bridge

We spent Saturday catching up on a little sleep and exploring the beautiful lakeside town of Lucerne.  The majority of the activity in the city takes place along the lake and river as well as the old town square.  We were very happy to find that our hotel was three blocks from the train station and within walking distance of everything in Lucerne.   Unfortunately, the weather on our first day was rather cloudy, which included low clouds that blocked what we would later learn was an incredible view of the mountains.  Making the most of our time, we strolled along the streets and crossed many of the very old, covered wooden bridges that Lucerne is famous for.  The main bridge and primary tourist attraction is Lucerne’s Chapel Bridge which was built in 1333 and is Europe’s oldest covered wooden bridge.  At the end of the bridge stands a tall water tower that over the years has been used as a prison, torture chamber and later a municipal archive.  Now it’s the site of a small tourist shop. 

Another thing we found rather interesting was that all pedestrians (and I mean ALL pedestrians) patiently wait for the green “walk” signs on every corner before crossing the street.  It’s not that we are typically “those” Americans always in a hurry to get where we need to go; we’re actually usually pretty good about that.  It was just that it stuck out since this happened even on side streets with short crossings and no cars in sight.  Just an interesting cultural observation. 

Dinner at a Swiss Restaurant

The more time we spent in Switzerland the more curious we became about why their economy is so stable and started doing some research.  This raised the question, “So what exactly is the big deal with Swiss bank accounts?”  After some research we were interested to learn that the main draw to Swiss bank accounts is that you are able to open and maintain these accounts with absolute secrecy from your own government.  In other words, if I had $500,000 sitting around, (Note: $500,000 is the standard minimum initial deposit required to open some Swiss Bank accounts.) and I didn’t want the US government to find out that I had it, I could safely keep it in a Swiss bank account.  By Swiss federal law, they could not reveal any information about my account to the US government or they would undergo immediate prosecution by the Swiss government.  It is often compared to doctor-patient confidentiality in terms of seriousness and the only way any information can be given is if the money is proven to be from insider trading, drug trafficking or organized crime.  The issue with this is that if Katie and I ever actually had $500,000 sitting around, it would probably mean that we were involved in insider trading, drug trafficking or organized crime so this doesn’t really help us. This reputation has resulted in a consistently strong economy with the unemployment rate in Switzerland staying around 3% for the past 10 years.  Not bad compared to America’s 8.3% right now.   This is very good for Switzerland but very bad for those who travel to Switzerland because this also makes Switzerland by far the most expensive city we have traveled to.  I’m not talking about Paris and London expensive, I’m talking about $9 bottles of water $16 sandwiches expensive.  Needless to say that we were happy when we found a local market near our hotel that contained a few more reasonably priced snacks and food items.  Just something to keep in mind for any future trips to Switzerland. 

Our Sunday plans to go to the top of Mt. Luzern were spoiled by more bad weather, resulting in equally poor visibility.  Fortunately our hotel told us of a website that contained live webcams of the mountaintop which ultimately confirmed that we would have been able to see about 10 feet in front of us.  Instead Sunday turned into a very relaxing “café” day (our favorite kind of day) since no stores (including most grocery stores) are open on Sundays.

Fortunately for us, Monday morning we were met with clear blue skies and our first view of the mountains that the brochures of Lucerne promised were there.  This day would turn out to be one of the highlights of our travels in the past 18 months.  We decided to make the journey via bus and gondola (basically a large covered ski lift) to the top of Mt. Pilatus.  It was a very scenic ride up to the top at 6,982 feet and clear skies all around.  It was there that we saw snow for the first time this year even though the bright sun brought the air temperature up to a comfortable 40 degrees.  With 360-degree views of the Alps and the town of Luzern looking even smaller, Katie and I settled into a few outdoor lounge chairs along one edge and relaxed in the sun.  It took our eyes quite a while to get adjusted to the brightness, which meant a lot of squinty-eyed pictures were taken before we finally got used to it.  It didn’t take long for us to shed layers, find a spot for a beer and coffee and Katie and I both were surprised to find out that one hour in the sun at that elevation could result in sunburn.  Never in our packing for our February trip to Switzerland did it occur to us to bring sunscreen. 

Katie loves macaroons!

After a great day with amazing views, we made our way back down to Lucerne where we spent our last night in this amazing city.  The people we met on this trip were incredibly nice and very willing to help.  The chocolates were as good as their reputation promised and we even found a new favorite treat called Luxemburgerli, which is basically a specific kind of macaroon.  There is not much more you can ask for than the kind of weekend we had in Switzerland.  It was just the right amount of time and the perfect way to spend one of our last weekend adventures abroad.