Lucerne, Switzerland, Country 2, Stop 5

June 26

Vasilis, the airbnb host has generously offered to take us to the Chania airport. We start the day before 6:30 am and what a crazy travel day it is! We arrive in Chania just in time to get to the gate and board the plane. We aren’t sure if our bags will fit—they do!—and we are off for the flight from Chania to Athens. We dash to the Swiss Air counter to grab our boarding passes and have to go through security again. Currently you have to show proof of vaccination before getting a boarding pass so it gets tricky with online check in. We downloaded copies of the card but we still had to check in on the day of the flight in person. Once again, we arrive at the gate as the passengers are boarding the bus out to the plane and PHEW! Made it. Wow. It’s only 9:30 and I feel like I’ve been through the ringer. I’m glad I have some extra disposable masks because I need a fresh one for sure.

The flight from Athens to Zurich is uneventful and we find the train to Lucerne. It’s a new country for Mia and Jack!! We have all been looking forward to Switzerland for a very long time. It’s a stop that Jack especially has been excited about. Already the air is cooler. After the heat and humidity of Greece, we are in heaven. Our hotel is a short walk from the train station. After the airbnbs, we decided to use points and get a hotel in Lucerne and it’s lovely. The perfect location. We even have a mini fridge in each of our rooms so we decide to walk to the grocery store to get breakfast items. We love looking around grocery stores in all the countries we go to. Same goes for pharmacies. It’s fun to see how people in different countries shop and what they buy. I make a mistake with the weighing and stickering of some fruit we want and the cashier walks me back over to the fruit section to show me how it’s done.

We are staying in the Ameron Luzern and it’s wonderful. The room is lovely and the bed is so comfortable and the pillows are the right amount of squishy. They even have a room service menu of sleep amenities like a snuggle pillow and a room spray. We have a stag hanging over the bed in our room and I shall call him Fritz.

We are starving after our travels so we walk to a place called Pastarazzi. It’s wonderful. You pick out the ravioli you want and the sauce you want and they make it up right there. It is DELISH. After the meal, we walk around and it’s perfect. The light is gorgeous, the air is the perfect temp, and it’s very festive with people walking around. With the exception of how expensive everything is in Switzerland, we think it is just the perfect country.

We head back to the hotel and Dmitri turns on the tv and we find a GEM of a game show. It’s called Klein Gegen Gross and it is all in German but we love it anyway. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_gegen_Gro%C3%9F_%E2%80%93_Das_unglaubliche_Due ll

***Dmitri: Everything in Switzerland costs twice what it does everywhere else. I need to not focus on that and just enjoy it, but wow, there have to be some adjustments. Thankfully, it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. It’s hard to find a bad view.***

June 27

We wake up and have a lovely hotel breakfast picnic and get ready to head out to our bunker tour. Bunker tour, you ask? Well, Switzerland has been building bunkers since the Cold War and has enough nuclear fallout shelters for its entire population. Jack is fascinated by this and has wanted to see one for years. Dmitri scoured the internets and found a tour. However, this tour is only offered once a month from April until August. And only offered the last Sunday of the month at 11 am. So in 2020 we planned very carefully and found a date that we made work. We all know how 2020 turned out. Luckily we were able to reschedule for the last Sunday of June in 2021. And luckily Switzerland was open to visitors since we planned this stop specifically for this tour! Two days before the tour, we get an email saying it is canceled because not enough people have signed up for the tour! Oh no! After some back and forth, we decide to throw money at the problem and book a private tour. And it is amazing and worth it. We learned so much and it was really cool. Originally the bunker was built for 20,000 people. Now it will hold 2,000 should the need arise. We love our tour guide and the whole excursion was fascinating. If you ever find yourself in Lucerne on the last Sunday of the month from April to August, I highly recommend this tour.

https://unterirdisch-ueberleben.ch/englishtours/ https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/in-case-of-emergency_the-forgotten-underground-world-of-swiss- bunkers/42395820

After the tour, we go to the Lucerne lion monument and look at it for a few minutes before heading on our way.

We have lunch and then Dmitri and Jack head off for a game museum. Here's Dmitri on the Throne of Games.

Mia and I walk along the water to Ufschotti, which is a little park area on Lake Lucerne with a small beach. Like many locals on a sunny Sunday afternoon, we take a dip in the lake and relax on the beach.

After the museum, Dmitri meets us at another gorgeous little park called Inseli and Mia finally gets to try an Aperol Spritz. On a previous walk around Lucerne at night it seemed like 80% of the people sitting at outside tables were drinking them and she wanted to try it.

***Mia: I was not a huge fan of the Aperol Spritz but it was pretty and bright orange and looked cute in pictures.***

***Dmitri: So do you (except the orange part).***