Luzern and Train to Como

Our second day in Switzerland we packed up and left Zurich for at least 2 reasons: a) its expensive! And b) there really wasn't all that much to do … we saw the cathedrals, and unless we wanted to shop for expensive clothes and gifts, swim in the lake (that option was tempting on Friday, but the weather was much cooler on Saturday) or visit the Lindt truffle factory, I don't know what we would have spent a second day doing. Anyway, at 40 euro per night, we wanted to check out of that hostel.

I suggested we go to Luzern (also spelled Lucerne, like the Safeway generic dairy brand...) because my parents had mentioned how much they liked it when they went. It was less than an hour from Zurich by train, so we caught a train there first thing in the morning. A note about the Zurich train statoin – THERE ARE MORE THAN 50 PLATFORMS. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DAUNTING THAT IS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON'T SPEAK GERMAN? Seriously, the Berkeley BART station has 2 platforms, and I've made mistakes there. But anyway we caught our train to Luzern, and arrived relatively unscathed. Once there, we were very grateful to see that they had lockers we could leave our framepacks in, and being the cheapskates that we are managed to shove both bags into a single locker to save six francs! This six francs was later spent on chocolate:

A good exchange, I feel.

Kim and I attempted to do the walking tour outlined in a tourist brochure, but got distracted by the farmers market/rummage sale happening all along the water. Regardless, Luzern was the most beautiful Swiss city I've ever seen (aka prettier than Zurich). It's full of medieval buildings and cathedrals, and even has a wall surrounding it for protection. Kim is a jerk, so she made me climb up the hill to one of the wall's towers, then climb up the tower even though my thigh muscles never did anything to hurt HER. If Kim's fascination with amazing views doesn't end soon, I'm going to look great when I get home!

Here's the stairs I had to climb up the hill.

And the view:

Following that adventure, we wandered back into town to look and buildings and shops. About 75% of the stores sold Swiss watches, it was ridiculous. Of course, there were also fondue restaurants and chocolate shops.

Also, gift shops sold cuckoo clocks that look exactly like the one in my living room at home. I think my parents probably bought it in Lucerne. Mom, Dad, can you verify that?

Kim and I stopped to split a real, live Italian pizza, which was delicious. Since we had plans to get to Italy the same day, I was thinking that we were probably done with Luzern, so I asked Kim if there was anything else she wanted to see. Kim looked over the tourist map to make sure we'd hit all the interesting spots and suddenly exclaimed, “wait. Is that a LION IN AN ICE CAVE?” So I looked at the map and she was pointing to an icon which did, in fact, appear to be a lion in an ice cave. So of course we had to see it.

It turns out what we were seeing is a war memorial.

After seeing the lion, we headed to the train station because it was already evening and we still had a 3 hour train ride to Italy. We tried to stay awake to watch the Swiss countryside, but we both napped a little, and read tour books to figure out how we wanted to spend our time in Italy.

Our first Italian city was Como, a town on the shores of Lake Como, just south of the Swiss border. Kim and I arrived at about 8pm, and although we knew which bus to take to the hostel we had no euros! For this blame Switzerland- WHY DO THEY NEED TO USE FRANCS. The tourist info office in the train station was closed, and there were no ATMS in the station, so with no map of Como and no way to get cash we didn't really know what to do. Luckily here was a bar in the train station, so we went to talk to the bartender:

Me: Do you speak English?

Bartdender: No.

Me: Espanol?

Bartdner: No. French?

Me: No.

Kim: German?

Bartender: No.

Kim: CUMULATIVELY WE SPEAK 5 LANGUAGES, BUT NONE OF THEM MATCH UP

So, I told him in Spanish that we needed to find an ATM, and explained that we had no euros. He taught me how to say ATM in Italian, which I assume is the same in Spanish (bancoautomatico!) and pointed me towards town, although I couldn't really understand his directions and wasn't quite convinced he knew were an ATM was at all. So, we headed towards town asking random people for ATMS in Spanish. After 10 or so minutes of no luck, I mentioned that for all we know, we could be within walking distance of the hostel (Italian: ostello) by now. So, we started asking people for directions there instead. The first guy we asked told us it was too far and we'd have to bus, but we told him we had no euros and were going to walk what he estimated was a kilometer.

When we finally arrived at the hostel, we were disgusting and sore and exhausted. We checked in and headed for the showers, which was fantastic. After that we asked the receptionist where we could find an ATM...and there was one across the street! A+. By about 10pm we realized we were hungry, and now that we were clean and had euros a meal was in order. Since the hostel office was open until midnight, we sort of assumed the kitchen was, too, so we went in to get dinner. Turns out they had just closed the kitchen, but I guess we looked like weary travelers so El Jefe fed us anyway. Photos of him are on Kim's camera, sorry!

Hostel review:

We've been told that HI Hostel Villa Olmo is much more of a typical hostel than the one in Zurich. 12 people per room, with one toilet, one shower and 2 sinks, although there is 3 of each in the other bathroom on this floor. There are probably a total of 40 beds for women. The beds are super uncomfortable, worse than a dog bed full of wigs. Curfew is midnight (Zurich had no curfew). It is safe tho, and clean. The staff are SUPER nice and friendly, answering the most ridiculous questions, like “how can we find George Clooney's vacation house” and “what is fennel?”