On Friday we began our trip to Lucerne, Switzerland.  To get there, we had to drive southwest through Germany, cross into Austria briefly, and then head up the Rhine river valley in the heart of the Alps.  We realized that we were going to be driving within about a mile of Liechtenstein and couldn’t resist a short lunch-time side trip to the capital of Vaduz!  Here were are fighting the crowds in front of the main government building.

Savvy travelers like us know a thing or two about blending in with the locals, so we ditched our US clothes and went native for a while.

After lunch, we headed on to Lucerne, where we rented a flat for the weekend.  After settling in, we took the bus to downtown Lucerne, where we started at the train station.

Searching for food, we headed towards the Kapellbrücke, a footbridge over the Ruess River dating back to 1333 that includes an octagonal tower in the middle.

Inside the bridge there are triangular paintings under the roof that were made in the 1700s.  There were more than 100 until a fire in 1993 destroyed most of them.  To be clear:  the Hubbard had nothing to do with this fire.

We wandered around the town a bit, enjoying the architecture and atmosphere.

We found an amazing restaurant (more on that in a bit) but there was a little bit of a wait, so we played human checkers outside for a while.

Dinner was at the Rathaus Brauerei, which has nothing to do with rodents.  “Rathaus” is German for “town hall.”  The restaurant is on the bottom floor of the town hall for Lucerne in a 400-year-old building on the banks of the Ruess. “Brauerei” is German for “brewery.”  Yep.  Lucerne has a top-notch brewery in its town hall.  This is a government with the right set of priorities.

The food was amazing.  Julie’s favorite spätzle to date.  And the beer was divine.  Our #2 best meal in Europe so far!  (It is going to be very hard to take the #1 spot.)

We’ll post more on our adventure in Switzerland soon.

-Will