Here's a quick preview of what you'll see in this post!
It was a rainy day (though warm and steamy),
and we decided to walk part of the Musegg Wall.
This wall defended the innermost part of the city of Luzern beginning in the 1300s.
We walked there (of course!),
and went by the Kapellbruecke (Chapel Bridge) again.
There was some old machinery - maybe related to hydro energy?
We found the first tower!
Noelliturm!
This tower was built in 1513.
From there, we followed the signs for "Museggmauer"
(= Musegg Wall).
The Reuss River was right there as we were walking.
Houses were built into the wall.
I loved how this one had pots of flowering plants hung all around the door!
It's really neat how modern life and ancient buildings cohabit in Switzerland.
We walked near the top of the wall for some time, where it was close to the river,
and then we ended up walking at the base of the wall.
There was a villa on top of the hill!
And the rock formations were neat.
We saw wild strawberries growing!
There was a great view of Lake Luzern with the snowy mountains behind.
There were flowering trees with beautiful pink petals falling all over the ground.
And here's the Zytturm (Swiss German)
Zeitturm (German)
Time Tower (clock tower)!
This tower was built in 1535.
Inside we watched the seconds and minutes tick away.
"The tower was built in the 15th century in order to show the townspeople and people in the ships on the lake and river the exact time. Today the clock tower displays historical timepieces."
There was a lot of climbing to get to the top!
The climbing came in stages and there was plenty to look at in between.
At the top of this tower, we could go out and walk along the top of the wall.
There's the beautiful city all laid out!
There's the wall!
Here's one of the minute hands - I could see it through the window!
There's another part of the wall down much further.
And three more of the towers!
There's the Leodegar Church, which we visited later.
The bell will ring every hour on the hour.
It was raining when we left the Zytturm.
We came to a place where the tower walkway was too small
and they closed the walkway.
We had to go down to street level again.
We wandered the streets some more, trying to get our bearings.
I love this door!
We had a good view of the wall and some of the towers we'd already seen.
It would truly make me feel like an OUTcast to be outside those walls if everyone else was inside and the gates were locked and there were arrows pointed at me from up on top!
This is the War and Peace Museum:
The FoxTrail is a tracking game that can be played in Luzern.
It involves following clues, much like a scavenger hunt.
We saw some girls from the UK playing it in one of the towers.
They inserted a coin into the box and a big booming voice thundered out in three languages, telling them the next clue. It was fun!
Then we found the Leodegar Church.
I saw this and knew there was a wedding taking place on that very day.
The church is named after the patron saint of Luzern,
St Leodegar.
Perhaps this is him?
When it started to rain again, the doves got their own umbrella.
"Ewige Anbetung" = eternal worship.
This is one of the rites of the Catholic Church.
The church had a beautiful cemetary, inside the walls of the church, as is Catholic tradition.
Anyone who died in a way that was not okay by them (suicide, not baptized, not receiving last rites)
didn't get the blessing of being baptized inside the walls.
It was the ultimate kick in the teeth.
This lady brought out her little daughter
(perhaps a trip to the little girls' room?)
and I loved her hair and outfit.
Blurry, but it's the best I have!
Floral maxi dress, blue blazer.
Her hair was braided to the side and then bunched up in a little bun in in the back.
Then we headed to Loewenplatz (Lion Place) to see the Lion Memorial.
It is a weeping lion sculpture, put up in 1821 to remember the Swiss Guard (mercenaries = paid soldiers) who died in 1972 at the Tuileries Palace in France when revolutionaries stormed the palace.
Memorial street:
It was beautiful, and his face was very very sad.
It felt very weird to smile next to this sad sad majestic lion.
but I wasn't sure what else to do with my face!
Right next to the monumbe was the National Natural Museum,
and we had free entry with our Swiss Travel Pass,
so we checked it out.
There was a section on glaciers -
this very ground was at once point under a glacier,
and these are some of the potholes leftover from it.
The main part of the museum was in a house from the 1800s with some of the remaining furnishings.
The bathroom had a reminder that ONE handtowel
leads to TWO dry hands.
I wondered if this wardrobe led to Narnia . . .
We climbed up to the watch tower
and then back down again.
I was wearing out by this point, you can be sure!
But we couldn't leave without seeing the Mirror Labyrinth!
It was much more fun than I had imagined!
A very fun day with lots of cool stuff seen and appreciated? - CHECK!
Wonderful memories made? - CHECK!
That wall was amazing. I LOVE to see the old buildings. The mirrors were funny especially the FAT one :)
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