Today we head into Lucerne for a look - we are only a 450m walk to our station , then a 5min ride into town . The railway station is right next to the port area where the cruise boats come and go from . The cruise boats come in lots of sizes , from the paddlesteamers that we had at Interlaken , to smaller ferry types . It was a lovely day and there were plenty out there .
Majestic hotel buildings line the shores and up into the hills .
Geraniums are popular here as well , with many planter pots & poles sprinkled around the city areas .
A feature in town are the two timber pedestrian bridges - this one " The Tower Bridge " has been in place since 1367 . The tower was a water tower originally , no longer in use for that , but certainly one of the most photographed bridges in Switzerland . It is a covered walkway with plater boxes along the side .
If we could read German , we would've been able to get an education in history from the paintings below the roof .
Thousands of people , and I do mean thousands of people cross this bridge every day .
They do like their painted buildings here .
After crossing the Tower Bridge , we crossed another to go into the old part of the city , alleyways seem to take off beside every 2nd building .
After a little bit of shopping , we went back to the Reuss River and found a seat to have our lunch at .
We were also beside the Chapel Bridge , it also dates back to 1360 , but nearly burnt down in the 1990's . They managed to rebuild it , some good timberwork in this construction .
That's the Nolli Tower , built in 1519 , has a road going through it , and was used as to store gunpowder for over 300 years .
And this is the Needle Dam - all of the wall you can see is used to back up the waters from the lake , and is formed with timber " needles " which are installed or removed by hand . It was used to deflect water into the hydro electric generators located on the left of the photo , some of the old turbine blades are still in place .
It's surprising just how much water is flowing down beside the Needles Dam , the water level drops about 600mm as it flows through the section of the river that is unobstructed , about 10m wide .
This mural is depicting Chicago , Lucernes sister city .
From here we wandered up beside the river , stopping at Lucerne Jesuit Church for a look . While it is ornate , it's not as over the top as many we've seen . That's still a lot of marble & gold trim .
That was it for the day , back to the train station and back to the hotel . Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1l5oK8gWskTKYZ8ik_hX5X-B3AixKZZE&usp=sharing
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