Lucerne - Little Big Festival City

This city with a population of just 75,000 is much more than watches, chocolate and cheese.  Its beautiful lakeside location, charming atmosphere and architectural diversity has attracted festivals since the 19th century and Christmas provides the ultimate festival opportunity. We had definitely been looking forward to visiting  this famous Swiss city.

 Crossing one of the bridges over the lake, we had this view of the old wooden bridge and tower. There are several of these bridges over the lake providing access from one side to another.  The British were the first tourists to the area and instigated the building in the 19th century of the luxurious hotels on the lake.  The bridges are beautiful structures with paintings depicting local fables suspended at intervals from the ceilings.

Walking along the road beside the lake, we arrived at the Franciscan Church which was holding services on this Sunday morning.

The interior of this church was in the traditional style from the Baroque period.

I realize the image will be small, but, hopefully, you can visualize the advent wreath.  The 3rd candle of Advent had been lit this morning on the wreath in front of the altar.

Outside the church was a Christmas Market, and I noticed that as the service ended, the parishioners headed for the market.  I'm running out of luggage space and weight but did manage to acquire a "Lucerne"Gluhwein mug.The temperature was pleasant and a great day for families to look for Christmas presents or just have lunch at the various stalls.

The Old Town was wonderful to wander through and fairly easy to navigate although I did get lost occasionally. 

Scenes such as this store windows converted to an Advent Calendar and beautiful frescoes on the old buildings kept us fascinated for hours..

Lunch time, however, was approaching (Heaven forbid that we should miss a meal!) and several of us had heard about a great Italian restaurant in the Old Town. The pizza and salad were delicious. Unfortunately, every place we have eaten has had wonderful food. Thank goodness they only weigh our luggage at the airport and not our rapidly expanding bodies!
After a quick trip across the bridge to our hotel to deposit purchases, we began our afternoon agenda. Close to our hotel was an ice skating rink and I loved their 'penguin' method of teaching beginners!

One thing we hadn't experienced was local Christmas music; therefore, a concert in the Lucerne Cathedral at 3pm sounded like a great idea.  Fortunately, we timed our arrival to be 30 minutes early and got some of the last seats in the large church.

The performance included several local choirs as well as an orchestra and the Geneva Brass Quintet. The music was beautiful.



Taking a brief shopping break, we headed over to the Old Corn Market where a life-size nativity scene had been set up.  We'd been told that this evening at 5pm there would be local children's choirs performing Christmas Carols. 

It actually turned out to be an event attended by hundreds of families with young children.  They were holding red candles when St. Nicholas arrived to speak to them.

My German wasn't good enough to understand what he said, but it was so much fun to be part of this local celebration and to listen to the families celebrating the season together and singing the carols.  Only a few of the carols were familiar such as Tannebaum, but the music, the setting and the beautiful evening were just magical.  

 By now it had been at least 5 hours since we had eaten so I finished my cappucccino I had enjoyed during the caroling, and we walked to the nearby Fondue House (highly recommended by those who had eaten there last night) and  enjoyed a delicious Cheese Fondue and local wine.
Hopefully, it will be open in the morning before our 12:30 departure so I can retrieve the chocolates I had just purchased and forgot to take with me.

Tomorrow afternoon we depart this magical Swiss town for our last stop -- Zurich.
More from Switzerland later...
Linda