Sunday, August 3: Luzerne, Switzerland

Lake Luzerne Ferry

We woke to beautiful blue skies, but by the time we were ready to go downtown, thunderheads were all around. We took a ferry from a dock next to the campground to downtown Lucerne and walked around in the rain, admiring the Chapel Bridge and Water Tower that were part of the town's defenses from the 1500's and wandered around the old town.

Swans, swans and more swans on Lake Luzerne

Many, many bicycles

The Tower was used as a prison, guardhouse, and torture chamber

The Chapel Bridge - part of the town's early defenses.  All decked out in flowers.  We walked the entire length where they have old paintings on wooden plaques telling the history of the town

Ironwork marking many storefronts on the old town

Painted Frescoed Buildings were Beautiful

Language has been a problem here.  Although many speak English, there are few signs in English.  I liked this one - translation:  Restaurant serves food all day. 

 Jack stopped at a chocolatier and picked up an assortment of barks and we found a baker to get a nice loaf of bread to have with dinner.  We caught another ferry back and this time it was an old-time steamboat side-wheeler....

Steam engine viewable from above with the paddle wheel through the window in the back.

Saturday, August 2: Lake Constance to Lake Luzerne

Woke to a cloudy morning and by the time we were ready to leave, it was raining. We drove across the top of the Lake and then south, going from Germany to Switzerland and back to a small slice of Germany before staying in Switzerland. When we crossed the Swiss border, no border patrol was there and we sailed right through. I knew that we needed a highway sticker to travel the major highways, so we stopped at a gas station and paid 40 Euro. An hour later when we were leaving Switzerland, the border patrol stopped us and told us we had the wrong sticker. After some paperwork and language confusion, we got everything straightened out. It actually cost us a little less, but we need an overweight vehicle sticker good for seven days, not the whole year.

We spent some time strongly conversing with the GPS about where it thought a grocery store would be, but it won and we had to abandon the idea after traveling miles out of our way. Back on track, we drove south through the middle of Switzerland to Lake Luzerne. We stopped at a campground on the Lake, got our spot then headed out again to find a large grocery store. No good. This is a tourist area and all the stores are small with little or no parking. The good part was we got to drive for a good 10 miles north along the lakefront – beautiful.

Friday, August 1: Black Forest to Lake Constance

We woke to the tinkling bells of the whole herd of cows coming out of the barn and into the field – we smiled a lot!

We left the campsite and drove south on through the southern part of the Black Forest to Konstanz, Germany on Lake Constance. The lake sits between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The traffic into the city was horrendous and we could find no place to park. We found that we had tried to get into town on Switzerland's National Day and a massive fireworks display was to happen that evening.

We gave up on trying to get into the city proper and headed back north along the lake to a campground right at the northern tip. Lots of sailboats and folks enjoying the small lakeside beach a the campground. We enjoyed a nice afternoon of sunshine on Lake Constance.

Thursday, July 31: Colmar, France to Black Forest (Furtwangen)

We drove east across the Rhine into Germany through beautiful rolling hills eventually becoming dark pine-covered high slopes. We kept seeing these huge square buildings that appeared to be hotels and/or restaurants, but there were so many of them! We finally figured out that they were farmhouses with barns and outbuildings all in one huge building. We could tell the home from the outbuildings when we looked close because the home portion at pretty lace curtains in the windows.

We stopped in the touristy town of Triberg, known as the heart of the Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks. We shopped about five different stores with hundreds of hand-made clocks – most traditional, but also some modernized ones that ranged from under $100 to well over $5,000. Jack decided on one that both of us liked and had it shipped directly home.

Our rural campground

Now that is a Bell!

We continued south through the Black Forest to a very small rural campground on the side of a hill. We kept hearing tinkling bells, but couldn't find the source until we realized that the cows in the adjacent field all were wearing large bells around their necks! After that, every time we heard a bell, we would smile.....