Got going at a relatively reasonable hour for us (i.e. before lunch) and decided to go out to explore some of the sights of beautiful Lucerne.

As soon as we walked out the front door of our hotel, we were immediately distracted by some markets that had popped up overnight . It seems all girls love looking at markets even if they have no intention of buying anything and this was no exception.

There were all kinds of stalls there selling fresh produce, meat, cheese, plants and handmade stuff (that's the technical term) plus lots of lovely flowers.

After eventually extracting ourselves from the markets, we took a few more photos of the amazing bridges. Yes, we're definitely exploring the theory that it's not possible to take too many photos of the same thing!

We then decided to visit Lucerne's next most obvious landmark: "The Wall". It's a giant wall 100m high made of ice that keeps the White Walkers & other crazies out ... oh, sorry ... wrong wall.

This was actually built in the 1300's as part of the defences of the city, and the covered bridges also formed part of this same system.

Being us, we found the steepest way to get up there and then proceeded to climb up each of the 3 towers that were open to the public. Well, there aren't any mountains nearby so we have to climb up something!

Left ourselves just enough time to get back into town to attend a free walking tour that was starting. It was a really interesting tour, run by a Lucerne-native ("Lucernite"? "Lucernian"?) who is also a history student .

A few highlights from the tour:
- "Lucerne" comes from the Latin word for either light or swampy area. The locals claim it's definitely the former.   

- The famous Chappel Bridge was built in 1336 and one side of the bridge is higher than the other to help with defences. The tower in the middle was built much later & has been used for storing grain, arms, and for torturing Protestants/non-believers

- Most of the bridge burned down in 1993 (in about 10min) as the blaze was accelerated by all the spider-webs in the timber. However since both ends remained, they can still claim it's the oldest wooden bridge in Europe!

- To test whether someone was a witch, they used to throw her into the river at the Chappel Bridge then see if she was still alive by the time she got to the second wooden bridge. If she was, it was obviously witchcraft so they'd burn her instead. If she was dead, she was obviously innocent since she'd gone to heaven. The "science" behind this logic went that water is pure, so if the accused is pure the water will accept her (I.e. she'll drown), but if she is evil then the water rejects her - so she's a witch! Great justice system!

- The City Hall has it's own brewery but you can only buy the beer there on tap ... nowhere else in the world! 

- Lucerne has the world's largest nuclear fallout shelter: a tunnel just south of Lucerne that can hold 20,000 people and includes a hospital & jail (although when they tested it they discovered the gates wouldn't shut and 20,000 people shut in a tunnel without toilets or water is not a pretty thing!)

- The famous Lion Monument was built 29 years after the end of the French Revolution as a tribute to the fallen Swiss mercenaries who died defending the French king's palace (while he ran out the back door!). As a result, Switzerland stopped supplying mercenaries to other countries, although the Pope still has Swiss guards. Mark Twain stated it was "the saddest piece of rock art he'd ever seen"
  
After the tour, we visited the Glacier Park & Gardens, right next to the Lion Monument. This is basically a huge area of rock where glaciers have carved all kinds of cool swirling shapes into the rocks.  

That was pretty interesting, but we all had the most fun making fun of ourselves in the mirror gardens and trying to work our way through the mirror maze. We'd be lying if we said we didn't laugh a little at the kids who smacked into the mirrors & started crying when going through the maze. It was funny!!
 
Some Aussies we met up on top of the wall earlier were raving about a Swiss restaurant & show at a place called Stadtkeller so we decided to check it out. It all looked pretty good so we went in out of the rain & sat down at a nice warm table.

The show was just as great as they'd described with yodelling, Alpenhorns, dancing, piano accordions and people making sounds on just about anything you could use from a Swiss farm to make noise. It was like the Swiss army knife of orchestral instruments ... they just kept bring out more weird things from nowhere!

Jeff had a go on the Alpenhorn & did a pretty good job, given it was his first time. Bev had a lot of fun getting up & dancing on the stage. I think this was the highlight of the entire trip for her so far & she stayed right until the end. 

Jeff walked her home then went out for his own late-night photo-walk while everyone else slept.