Day 4 - Switzerland (Lucerne)

We had a long journey ahead of us, when we started day 4 at 0900 hrs.

After about an hour, the ladies in the group started chanting bhajans. This went on for about an hour, followed by Antakshari. We ere then shown a movie (forget the name, but it was a good comedy and the Hindi version of "It's a mad, mad, mad world). We entered the Swiss border at 1300 hrs. There was no check at the Swiss entry post.
After crossing the check post, we stopped at an Auto Grill. The restaurant brought back memories of our grandson Ashwin. This was the place where we had lunch at Singapore, before Ashwin was born. Name of the restaurant ??? MARCHE. We had our breakfast carried over lunch at The Marche, along with a big bowl of French fries. Unlike at Singapore, we were not given cards here( which would later be billed, consumption based) before food.
From Marche, we took off to Lucerne. We could see the transformation into Switzerland, by the mountains and extra greenery. We saw a huge lake, just before entering Lucerne. Lucerne, itself is a small tourist town.
Here we set off to see the statue of the lion made of a single rock. The lion was weeping with a spear through its heart. The statue was definitely well made. I told the group that you could see many more statues made in a single stone, including a whole temple in Chennai, at Mahabalipuram. The statue and the park in which it is made has been commemorated to the 118 soldiers, who died during the World war. The lion, depicits its sympathy for the soldiers.

We had an hour's free time at the Lucerne lake. The place is surrounded by chocolate and souvenir sellers. We hopped into a Swiss watch shop and shot back immediately, on seeing the prices. We decided to buy some Swiss chocolates. We were more encouraged, when we saw that out Rupees were fetching us more Swiss francs, than the Euro offer at Florence. We did buy some chocolates and a small time piece. The chocolates, were expensive, but as carry backs in memory of our Swiss visit we did not mind. Savi bought a Stolle here for use in Switzerland and then to be given to Madhu.

Lucerne has a good lake, with a lot of Swans floating around.

We then proceeded to Engelberg, for dinner and checked into our hotels by 2000 hrs. The dinner was excellent.