Lauterbrunnen and Lucerne, Switzerland and HOME

We got up early to hit the road from Bern to Lucerne. We knew we wanted to spend some of the day between the two cities in an area called Lauterbrunnen. We did not err in the judgement. It was the most gorgeous area. Our weather was PERFECT, too.

Mountains and waterfalls? Yes, please.

YEP.

"I'm taking a shower"

Petefish.

An adorable, traditional Swiss home

Valley views

We were pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive parking was at only $1 per hour so we paid our fee, parked the car and got out to explore. We found that you could hike up to and behind the waterfall so off we went!

Mocking his mother at the beginning of a tunnel
*Susan is afraid of tunnels

Behind the waterfall

Petefish

I hadn't taken into account the fact that my hair may get wet during this adventure so I had to improvise and use my scarf (it had been a little chilly that morning) as a shield for my hair. I kind of forgot about it until we went to snap a photo and there I was with my scarf on still. We are cracking up in the photo shown above here.

The view from behind the waterfall

Views from the hike

The water was MOVING

Jackson

My hair hated the waterfall...everyone else loved it! ;)

My hair being wrecked was totally worth it for the views. The little hike up to and behind the waterfall was really well maintained and pretty quick. We never luck into hikes like that! ;)

Gorgeous!!!!

Proving the background isn't fake! 

We decided to walk into town to try to find lunch as we still had time left on our parking meter. We were trying to spend through the last of our Swiss Francs as we were headed home the next day so we were down to $5.80. Jackson stopped at a wurst stand charging $6 so we were short. The friendly Swiss man took pity on us and spotted him the 20 cents. Jackson was happy as a clam!

Jackson found a wurst stand.
This should surprise no one.

Since we were out of currency (darn! HA!), we had to go to the grocery store to grab lunch for me. They have excellent prepared foods sections at the stores here so I got a pasta salad and a pretzel roll for us to both nosh on. I should have gotten two pretzel rolls as things got fierce when it came to sharing that delicious goodness. We found a bench and sat down to enjoy our food before hitting the road again. We could not have asked for a more gorgeous place to have a little lunch.

What a happy little picnicker
Please note the pretzel roll that was
likely my share that he ate!!

We took a quick drive over to Interlaken, a little town where we'd almost stayed, and found ourselves glad that we'd hit Lauterbrunnen first as it was much prettier and more our style. Then we got on the road to Lucerne as we still had about 75 minutes to go before we'd get there.

THIS IS A RANDOM SHOT TAKEN
ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
SWITZERLAND, GIVE IT UP!

There is too much beauty in this shot.

We arrived in Lucerne and parked our car in a garage just outside of city center. This proved to be a very wise move as the traffic in the city was insane. It had gotten to be a very warm day and the city was very crowded as it was Saturday afternoon. We walked over to see their famous lion sculpture, darn near got sucked into buying a cuckoo clock (I was thisclose as we'd heard the birds while we were hiking a few times this trip and the clocks were adorable but alas, I refrained) and then headed for the lake.

The aptly named, Lion Monument

Lucerne the city sits on the banks of Lake Lucerne and could not be more picturesque.

Lake Lucerne

Chapel Bridge

The city's historic Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) was originally built in 1333. YES. 1333. It was damaged by a fire in August, 1993 and was refurbished and back up and running by April,1994. Listen, the Swiss are efficient.

Another shot of Chapel Bridge

We did not do a lot in Lucerne. We just kind of walked around and took it all in. It was truly the busiest place we visited all trip. It made Paris look calm!

Lucerne

Notice the castle on the hill

A view from the bridge

What a handsome guy

After grabbing a quick gelato in a waffle cone (air conditioning for your mouth) and stopping in at Läderach (only the best chocolate shop on earth) to grab Susie some special chocolate treats for watching MacKenzie for us, we headed back to the car to navigate out of town to our hotel for the night. We'd booked a room in a hotel in the outskirts of Lucerne purposefully as we had kind of an early flight the next day out of Zurich and wanted to cut down on our morning drive.

An authentic Swiss restaurant 

Our location worked out really well and our Holiday Inn Express Affoltern am Albis (yep, we never quite got the pronunciation of the town down) was great. We walked from there into town for an authentic Swiss dining experience. We did not realize just how authentic it would be as the restaurant was the first that we visited the entire trip that did not have an English menu. CRAP! We stumbled around trying to order one beer and one tap water, then receiving two beers and no water, when we gave up and turned on our phone's service so we could have google translate. Praise Jesus for the internet! It was worth $10 to not be SO CONFUSED.

Junior DRINKING A BEER!!!!!

The mass confusion was well worth it once we'd received our orders. The restaurant was known for its cordon bleus and we were not let down by their offerings. I had the "lady's portion" (try getting away with calling it that in the United States- ha!!) of their original cordon bleu and Jackson had one with more of an Italian flare.

Even translated the menu was a bit confusing

I'd eat this meal daily. Thank you.

I refrained from ordering an additional batch of the noodles that came with my dinner. They were superb. Jackson's french fries were good, too. This was the first meal in our entire relationship (that we can recall) where I finished my meal first (remember, the lady sizing) and was picking at Jackson's plate. He does that to me nearly each meal. 

As we were out in the beer garden dining, a nice, young Swiss couple sat next to us. They eventually figured out that we spoke English and they spoke some so they learned over and chatted with us. Where were they during the ordering debacle?! It turned out the guy was going to California for six weeks shortly and was excited to practice his English. The girlfriend actually spoke English much better than he did and she kept translating. He started getting a little worried about his trip without her. We warned them that no place we'd been in the States offered menus in other languages so he'd better have Google translate at the ready like we did!They were super nice and we truly enjoyed chatting about our different countries with them. They were tired of Switzerland and found it boring. We told them it was a utopia and to be grateful. We also taught them about how if you don't have an opinion or you want to stay neutral on a subject here in the U.S. you just yell out, "I'm Switzerland" and no one bothers you. They found this hilarious. We eventually turned down doing shots with them, early flights and all, and headed back to our hotel for the evening. I think the random dinner was one of my favorite traveling experiences ever. It is good to be uncomfortable sometimes!

We got up early, fueled up the rental car and headed for the Zurich airport. It was a Sunday morning so this meant nothing was open and no one was on the roads. We made it there with ample time to spare. We went through security without any issue and actually found a restaurant making American-style omelets. What?! SCORE!! We shared an omelet and some awesome potatoes before boarding our flight bound for Atlanta. It would be a quick 10.5 hour flight back to the States. We watched a ton of movies (post on those coming) and just looked back on photos from the trip. We had such a great time!

Flying back home with happy hearts and fond memories

We got through customs in Atlanta without issue (the easiest we've ever gotten back into the country, honestly) and headed for the nearest restaurant selling ICED TEA. We found a Chipotle, ordered food like we'd never eaten before and marveled when the price was well-under $20. We are such dorks. I enjoyed every ounce of that tea before we boarded our quick flight to Indy. I watched most of a movie and we were home! We didn't check bags so we just walked from the airport to our waiting shuttle. We paid the astronomical parking bill and headed for home. It was still the early evening and we were able to get home, unpacked, laundry started and Susan dropped off MacKenzie before we climbed in for an early bedtime. What an awesome trip!!