We decided last night that we would have a sleep in and a slower start to the day. That was the plan…

The plan was foiled with the sound of drums and church bells at 7.00am that seemed to go on forever – at least 10 minutes! Half an hour later, they went again for another 10 minutes! It was Corpus Christi day and it’s a public holiday. As we were staying beside a church, we were always going to hear whatever was going on. Usually we heard them on the hour striking the number of the hour, so 12 o’clock was always the noisiest.

At this point we decided to get ourselves organised and out. As we left the apartment we heard music, bells, singing etc and quickly realised there was a parade crossing the street to the church. As we scrambled for our cameras and started merrily snapping the parade marched past us. There were firstly children dressed in white, followed by the Blue Brigade (that’s not what they are really called but I don’t know what they were), followed by adults and in some cases their pets, and then the Swiss National Guard in their jester suits (not really).

We took a walk to the famous Lucerne Lion Monument – The Lion Monument in Lucerne is a giant dying lion carved out of a wall of sandstone rock above a pond at the east end of the medieval town. It was designed as a memorial for the mercenary soldiers from central Switzerland who lost their lives while serving the French king Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

The names of the soldiers are listed on the memorial, and there are four Zimmerman’s listed, and from my cousin’s ancestry search it is likely they were distant relatives.

By the time we had finished the drizzle had turned to rain so we headed back to the apartment to get rain jackets / umbrellas and change tack. I decided this was a mobile photography day as carrying a backpack, and camera raincoat was just too fiddly in this weather.

Wandering the city towards our next stop we came across the jester-suit boys again parading through the town. We followed them for a while (well actually, Kirtseen was stalking them). She was trying to get a better photo than the one at the beginning of todays blog where there is a spear coming out of her head – haha.

Next stop was the Musegg Wall and Towers. Once a symbol of power, the Musegg Wall and its nine towers are part of Lucerne’s historic fortifications; forming a striking crown around the Old Town, the wall can be discerned from afar. We had seen this most days as we walked around Lucerne. There were views from the wall right across the city.

Suzanne was the only keen one to climb up the inside of the clock tower. What she didn’t realise is that it was almost o’clock. As the clock struck , the bells sounded and then struck times – very loudly! Poor lady was almost deafened.

Walking back down the hill to town there were many old buildings and houses with old character shutters, statues attached to the houses, and some that we wondered if they were actually used still.

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As it was now raining again we thought stopping for a drink at La Terrazza on the rivers edge was a plan. What a grumpy sour-faced waitress we encountered. We sat at an outdoor table (under cover) and asked if we could just have drinks. She seemed surprised that we said just drinks, and started to remove the cutlery and table settings from the table. We said we might have a nibble, but as we hadn’t looked the menu we weren’t sure. Well, apparently that was all too much so she slapped the settings back down again muttering.

After all that, we thought we would get an antipasto platter. We wished we hadn’t. It was mainly seafood – alot of octopus,a little bit of crayfish, a prawn, and something else fishy we couldn’t identify! There was also one piece of jamon/serrano ham.

We left in a hurry and I left my umbrella there – terchnically not mine as such, but the one that came with my apartment. It turned out not to be a problem though as Kirsteen lent me the one from her apartment and when we departed Lucerne I left it hanging in my room. Haha, now it looks like she lost the one from her room. They were purple and had the apartment name on them so it’s not like it wasn’t obvious where they belong. Maybe some kind swiss soul dropped it back.

On the way home we stopped for a flower sorbet. We had seen them through the shop window every day so now it was time to have one. You choose your own sorbet flavours, and they craft it into the cone to look like a flower.

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After swinging by the church across the road to look inside we headed back to the apartments to have a snack, champagne and review our photos from the day.

We headed out for out last dinner in Lucerne, this time choosing a more upmarket Italian restaurant – Barbatti. We had a lovely meal and a strange waiter who chose when to pretend he didn’t understand us. We did have some good wine though and the food was great.

And that is farewell to Lucerne – tomorrow we head to Zurich. One last photo as a reminder to us all of our favourite confused restaurant in Lucerne.