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<\/a><\/p>\nThis is not one of THOSE pictures, however, because THOSE pictures were taken on a 35mm point and shoot potato by someone with no idea how to operate it.\u00a0 The lion is recognizable, but only just. 31 years later, the Lion looks about the same, but my phone is a lot more forgiving of my photography skills, which probably haven’t advanced much.<\/p>\n
At any rate, the Lion is an\u00a0anti-<\/em>revolutionary monument, dedicated to Swiss mercenaries who died trying to protect (checks notes) Louis the XVI.\u00a0 Definitely not as inspiring a story in 2025, that’s for sure.\u00a0 But the sculpture’s pretty cool, and it’s in a quiet little grotto in the middle of the city.<\/p>\n OK, Lion, tick.\u00a0 What are the other must-see sights in Lucerne?\u00a0 The two wooden bridges over the Reuss.<\/p>\n The first is the Chapel bridge, originally built in 1333, but substantially restored after a fire in 1993. It has wooden panels along the entire length depicting scenes from Lucerne’s history.<\/p>\n But those panels aren’t NEARLY as cool as the ones on the Spruer bridge, just downstream. Built in the late 1500s, the panels in THIS bridge all feature Death.\u00a0 Not just the abstract concept of death, but the anthropomorphic personification, doing all sorts of spooky things.<\/p>\n Sometimes it’s even wearing a hat.<\/p>\n There’s DOZENS of these panels. They’re amazing.<\/p>\n Having looked at the major sights downtown, we decided to go check out a very different type of history, in the form of the Swiss Museum of Transport, which is, as it turns out, the most popular museum in Switzerland.<\/p>\n It’s set up as a number of different buildings around a central courtyard.\u00a0 One for trains, one for boats, one for planes, etc.\u00a0 This one was, unsurprisingly, for cars.<\/p>\n But pictures aside – this museum is well worth a visit.\u00a0 It does an excellent job of striking the balance between “entertaining for children” and “not boring for adults.”\u00a0 Plus, trains and planes and boats are just inherently pretty cool<\/p>\n One more picture – this time of a “vending machine” that would pluck a car off of the wall periodically and bring it to a turntable for people to gawp at.<\/p>\n After a solid few hours in the museum, it was time to set off for our next destination, and we wanted to allow plenty of time, because we had to get to an entirely different country.<\/p>\n Leigh and I have had a running joke ever since we were married that at some point we wanted to take a honeymoon trip to the tiny countries of Europe – Liechtenstein, San Marino, the Vatican, Andorra, and Monaco.<\/p>\n And just a few weeks shy of our twentieth anniversary, we were finally going to tick off ONE.\u00a0 At this rate, I don’t know that we’ll ever finish.\u00a0 But it’ll be fun trying. Especially if everywhere is as pretty as Liechtenstein.<\/p>\n To be pedantic, only the parts of this picture on the LEFT side of the river are actually Liechtenstein.\u00a0 But on the other hand, we LIKE being pedantic.<\/p>\n An absolute must do on this visit was to try the national dish of Liechtenstein, which we have previously attempted to make right here on this blog.<\/a> And at a restaurant in Triesenberg, with this amazing view of the Rhine valley, we had the chance to do just that.<\/p>\n My heavens.\u00a0 This was fantastic.\u00a0 Big pile of cheesy dumplings with crispy fried onions.\u00a0 What is not to like, I ask you?<\/p>\n We each ordered a serving, and neither of us was able to finish, although we made a valiant effort.<\/p>\n At this point it was time to walk to our evening accommodations.\u00a0 It was about a mile, and we were growing increasingly concerned by the weather.<\/p>\n …except it never did.\u00a0 It passed slightly higher up the mountain and spared us, allowing us to arrive perfectly dry at our yurt.<\/p>\n Before this summer, I had only been to Switzerland once, while I was an undergraduate.\u00a0 I was helping chaperone \/ play as a ringer for the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony.\u00a0 That trip included a single day excursion to Switzerland from … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nTag yourself!\u00a0 I’m the kid in red leaning on the table.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThere were also a number of entire airplanes, submarines, and boats scattered about.
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\nThere was a lot of extremely photogenic stuff, but for some reason we didn’t take a lot of pictures.\u00a0 I’ll blame it on being late in the trip, and we were getting tired.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nYou could SEE the rainstorm walking down the valley towards us.\u00a0 It was really spectacular.\u00a0 It was going to feel a lot LESS spectacular when it started dumping water on us…<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nBut why were we at a yurt in Liechtenstein?\u00a0 Well, that’s a story for the NEXT post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"