Sailboats and Sunsets in Switzerland

So, back to Europe...

After Salzburg, Austria Christy and I headed to Switzerland. We would have liked to make it to more of the Alps, but because of time we stopped in Luzern for a night and then headed to Lausanne to visit a college friend of Christy's.

Something I didn't know about Switzerland was that half of it speaks German and the other half speaks French. Well we hit both in our only two stops in Switzerland. Luzern was a German speaking city and Lausanne was a French speaking city.

Luzern was fun to walk around. It was small and very quaint. We had quite the adventure trying to find a hostel to stay at, and then had some walking adventures getting back to it after one of our outings.

Luzern has a part of the city that is really old and has this standing fortress wall that used to protect the city. It was a little awkward to walk up and down the towers with my pack on, but it got me some great shots.

The Swiss Alps in all their glory.

This is a semi-famous monument in Luzern. It commemorates fallen soldiers.

The city was set on this gorgeous lake and since it was late summer there were lots of people on their sailboats.

So, while we were in Luzern there was a music festival, the annual Blue Balls festival (odd name to anyone else?) going on along the lake. It caused crowds of people so that was a little annoying, but in passing we did hear some good music. I don't know why, but there were swans all over the lake. Not quite the scene from the Notebook, but it was mesmerizing!Luzern's famous covered bridge.Evening shot. So pretty!
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After a short stay at Luzern we hopped on a train and headed to Lausanne. Christy has a friend living in Lausanne as a nanny and she had some time off so we hung out with her for the night. Lausanne was on lake Geneva so you could see France across the lake.
The Swiss Alps are on the left. The French Alps on the right. How cool!
The Swiss love to sail.

This was perhaps one of the most beautiful sunsets I will ever see.

Switzerland was beautiful, and I would have liked to have been in the Alps, but it was an uneventful couple of days. I was kind of thankful for this, because it was restful. However, the uneventfulness was due to how expensive Switzerland is! It cost about three times as much than anywhere else we stayed in Europe. They may be neutral, but they sure don't encourage tourism. Their prices seem high to those visiting, but not natives since the average salary is three times higher than the average in the States.

grace and peace.