We spent a wonderful weekend in Luzern where we discovered lots of amazing items on their Autumn Bucket List.
We set off early on Saturday morning and arrived at our hotel in Luzern around 10.30. We were staying at the Hotel Waldstätterhof which is really centrally located in the middle of town and makes a perfect base to explore. We were given two large connecting rooms offering plenty of space with two bathrooms and three beds for the children. We dropped off our bags and set off on our mission.
The first stop for us on our bucket list tour was to track down a delicious bireweg pastry from the Confiserie Bachmann. The shop is beautiful with a feature chocolate wall and plenty of delicious things to choose from. We found our pastry and went outside to try it. If, like us, you haven't come across it before, bireweg is a pear and spiced fruit mix wrapped up in pastry and it’s delicious!
Feeling restored after our snack, it was time for some shopping. In our welcome pack, we received some city cards to spend during out visit. City cards are a great initiative whereby travellers are offered a voucher of CHF50 when you book a stay over CHF100 in a partner hotel. The city cards are redeemable in a variety of shops around the city as well as boat trips, hotels and restaurants so it gave us a good excuse to explore the bustling shopping area. There is a huge choice of shops and lots of markets on a Saturday so we really enjoyed strolling round and absorbing the atmosphere and discovering the architecture as we went.
All this shopping had made us hungry so we headed to our next item on the bucket list which was lunch at the Wilden Mann hotel. The children received a warm welcome with colouring equipment and their own menus. Alba chose fish fingers and Jude opted for sausages. We had heard that the venison is a must-try so Jean and I opted for that and it didn’t disappoint. We were so cosy in the restaurant and out of the rain, it gave us chance to plan the activities for the afternoon. We had been given some Dine Around cards which we could use here as well as a number of other restaurants around the city.
We had also been given a museum pass. For CHF36 you can get a card which allows you to visit lots of Luzern’s museums over two consecutive days. This is especially useful for a large family like us for whom museums etc quickly become expensive. Our first museum stop was the Bourbaki Panorama. This was unlike anything we had seem before and the children loved it as the pictures invite deep scrutiny to enable them to identify mistakes in the pictures they were given.
We were very close to another museum so we decided to stroll up to the Gletschergarten (Glacier Garden) while we were in the area. The glacier garden is a great spot for all ages and we all enjoyed entering the atmospheric darkness of the rocks and learning about their transformation over time. The whirlpool at the end is especially impressive. The children also loved the mirror maze and the museum.
There are lots of other museums to choose from including the transport museum (you can read about our previous visit here).
After a busy day, it was time to head back to the hotel to get dried and changed before heading out for dinner. For the evening, we had found another restaurant which accepted the Dine Around cards and headed to the Luce restaurant in the Radisson Blu hotel. The restaurant serves Levant cuisine in bright surroundings. Jude and Alba were given activity sheets and soon got stuck into their puzzles and colouring while I fed Elio and we perused the menu. Everything was really good and we were happy to taste some things we hadn’t tried before.
We were back at the hotel early and settled in for the night. Elio didn’t sleep very well so we were all up early and downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast choice at the hotel is large with hot food, cereal, pastries, a selection of cheeses and fruit. With full stomachs, we went to pack our suitcases before checking out.
The last activity on our Luzern bucket list was a boat trip on the lake so we headed down to the pier where we would meet the very cool boat which would take us on a round trip to the foot of the Bürgenstock mountain and back. We loved the 1H boat trip and ventured outside to enjoy the views. It was a real treat to relax in our comfortable seats and watch the beautiful scenery passing by around us.
The bucket list is such a good idea. It gave us a really good frame work of things to try and things to visit and there is still plenty more to discover.
Luzern is a beautiful and bustling city with so many activities to choose from for families. It definitely ranks amongst our top 3 favourite cities in Switzerland.
Information
Luzern Tourismus AG Tourist Information Zentralstrasse 5 CH-6002 Luzern +41 (0)41 227 17 17 luzern@luzern.com