Over the River and Through the Woods...or in our case, just follow the river

At 6:15 this morning it was apparent that while our minds were telling us to get up our bodies were begging us to stay in bed. A week of no sleep was finally catching up with us today. However, we drug ourselves out of bed and headed to the continental breakfast once more. We were happy to find a few new choices, including chocolate cereal and hot chocolate (after all we are in Switzerland). Curious of what our day had in store for us we headed to the concierge for his expert advice on how we should spend our day, since the weather was a little gloomy. We had planned on visiting one of the highest peaks in the Alps but didn't want a replay of Vesuvius, therefore we sought advice. He recommended a "3 hour tour" of Lake Lucerne by boat. We took his advice and headed toward the train station to buy our tickets. The conceirge gave us the easiest directions to reach the train station, telling us to simply follow the river. These are the same directions that we received from several locals last night as we attempted to locate our hotel, but ended up lost. After once again having to ask for further directions while venturing to the train station we finally understood that "follow the river," literally means to walk right beside the river and not in its general direction. No worries tomorrow we will definitely know how to follow the river!

After making it to the train station we decided to go ahead and book our tickets to Prague for tomorrow as well as the lake tour tickets. Since none of the signs have English translations, it is really hard for us to navigate the station. Therefore, our only option to find our way around is to ask people who are nearby. The people in Switzerland are either very nice and willing to help or are rude and want nothing to do with us, there is no middle ground. Although we ran into a few rude people, like yesterday, we were fortuante enough to run into some English speaking natives who were more than happy to point us in the right direction.

After purchasing our tickets we headed to board the ferry. By this time it was raining and quite chilly outside so we were glad to see the ferry was partially enclosed. Beginning the journey across the lake, we hoped for strong winds to move the clouds so that we could see the snow capped mountains. Unfortunately, we didn't get that lucky. While the clouds were there to stay, we still enjoyed seeing the lush green hills of the Swiss countryside. The water in the lake was also a transparent green which made for a few good pictures. At the end of our "3 hour tour" we got off the ferry at Fluelen and caught the train back to Lucerne.

In Lucerne we decided we wanted to see a little more of the city, so we began our river stroll with tour guide, Allayna (a.k.a. Rick Steves, author of tour book). Some of the neatest things we learned were about the 2 oldest bridges, the Chapel and Mill Bridge, and how long they had been around. After soaking up some of the cultural and historical knowledge of the town, the cold weather and our heavy eyes led us back to our hotel for a quick nap (minus Meredith, who caught up on external communications). After resting we headed back out to do some more exploring and eat dinner. However quickly realizing Switzerland was much more expensive than Italy, we ended up at a local grocery store to get some things for dinner. This was quite an experience as the grocery store was small and very crowded.

Basically, we have had a pretty low key day. We are back in the room earlier than ever and intend on catching up on much needed sleep tonight. This will be imporant becuase we have another full day planned in Switzerland tomorrow before we catch our train to Prague that leaves at 9:30 pm.

Just as a heads up we will probably not be posting anything tomorrow since we will be on a train all night, arriving in Prague at about 11:00 am on Saturday.