The Tail End

Train travel through Switzerland is simply joyful, with every window frame a postcard of deep green rolling hills giving way to rugged mountains dusted with snow at their peaks, rushing rivers and a smattering of cute little houses - you expect at any moment to see a yodelling trio or a man in lederhosen playing a long curved alpenhorn. The trains leave on time, they are clean and the seats are comfortably upholstered. What's not to like?

Lucerne is a very pretty town and is our last stop on this trip. We're glad to be here, but also excited about going home again in a few days. The whole suitcase thing and the up-and-down stairs thing and the hotel room thing and the looking for a place to eat dinner thing has been wearying. Last year's trip where we stayed one month in each location and in apartments where we could self-cater, was much easier by far.

Nevertheless I don't want to give the impression that we're not having a brilliant time, because we are; the countries we've visited have been glorious, each one for different reasons - Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Switzerland.

We arrived in Lucerne yesterday and as the weather was perfect, we took the opportunity to make a boat trip on Lake Lucerne. This gave us the opportunity to see the beautiful surroundings of this town from the water.

Upon returning we walked to the Old Town across the famous Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden bridge flanked on each side by a magnificent floral display.

At nighttime this bridge is breathtakingly beautiful because of the reflected illumination. Similarly, lighting makes a dramatic difference to other public buildings.

Today we took an organised walking tour, which was interesting in that it gave us an insight into Switzerland's (and particularly Lucerne's) history. We haven't visited a lot of cathedrals and churches on this trip, but one thing we have noticed in Europe is that so many stunning interiors of religious buildings would not be discovered if you judged a book by its cover and assumed the inside was going to be much the same as the outside (i.e.not particularly interesting). This turned out to be true of the Jesuit Church here, which is externally not even of passing interest. Our tour guide led us inside however, and we gasped.

Many of the buildings have beautiful painted façades and decorative features which reflect events in the town's history and related mythology. We've had fun discovering all the different artwork over the past 24 hours.

Tomorrow we will visit the open air fruit and vegetable market, the cheese fair and the flea market in the morning, before moving on to more cultural sites. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for one last blog post with photos.

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