Monday, October 22, 2012

Feldkirch, Austria to Lucerne, Switzerland


Not having a German map, and not much internet access for the last few days, we were finally able to figure out where the next two days of riding would take us while drying off in Austria.  We weren't far from the Touratech headquarters, so we'd have to get creative with our route.  We were spending a lot of time on the motorcycles in bad weather, so only riding for a small part of the day, then exploring a city the rest of the time sounded good to us.  Two cities that interested us were Lucerne, Switzerland and Konstanz, Germany. Both would be short rides and give us a good opportunity to explore.


Lucerne has a lot of history with many sights to see and a very old town center to explore, complete with a long covered bridge built in 1333.  After arriving in town and being soaked in the rain, we immediately decided to find lodging.  Again, most of the hotels in the historic part of the city were a bit above our price range, but eventually we found a nice one that wasn't too expensive and even overlooked the river and bridges.  We did some much needed laundry in the hotel room sinks then took advantage of a break in the rain and started exploring the city.  We worked up an appetite walking all over the place, so we treated ourselves to dinner and some beers at a local brewery on the river then went to bed.  The next day we would walk the old castle wall and see the dying lion monument everyone had told us about.


We woke up to pouring rain again.  After checking out of our room and leaving our gear at the front desk, we hit up the first shop we could find to buy an umbrella.  This proved to be a wise purchase. The old castle walls and lookout towers were fun to explore, and we managed to take in most of the sights in the city.  Lucerne has definitely been one of our favorites this trip. After getting back to the hotel and packing the bikes, we made one of the best decisions yet: book a hotel room in advance for Konstanz.  A quick bit of searching online found us an apartment to rent for one night in a great location at a great price.  If we had done this all trip, we would have saved a lot of money and aggravation.  We are used to camping every night and flying by the seat of our pants in a country where we know the language and customs, but it's a lot harder to do that here.  Lesson learned.

-Matt
One of the bridges had paintings depicting the Black Plague.

The dying lion memorial for Swiss mercenaries that died in the French Revolution

1 comment: