Cows, Chocolate, Knives, Beer, and Mountains. Guess Where?

From Paris, our next stop was Lucernce, Switzerland. We woke up early in Paris for the bus ride to Lucernce and had breakfast again at the hotel buffet. We had a chance to relax, listen to music, read and chat for a few hours on the coach.

We got to Lucerne and spent the afternoon exploring the attractive little medieval town and walked around for a while on the narrow, cobblestone streets. We walked over the Chapel Bridge (a famous wooden bridge that was burned down at some point and then later rebuilt) and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery of the lakes and rivers that run throughout the village. We bought some cheese and chocolate and some of us got Swiss army knives.

We then made our way to the hotel and got ready for our night out. We had dinner at a folklore-themed restaurant with traditional Swiss foods—fondue to start, veal and potatoes, a tasty little desert cake and of course, two large mugs of beer included in the meal.

There was live music and a stage and show including a two person cow that walked around the restaurant, yodelers on the stage (some Contikites were even brave enough to get up and give yodeling a shot on stage or play this gigantic instrument that looked like a huge pipe and made the most ridiculous noise!) Dinner ended with a huge train of travelers and locals going around holding onto each others’ shoulders and dancing around the restaurant, led by the happiest drunk and dancing old man, who was stoked when the whole restaurant got up to join in his dance party, as he had been laughing and singing and dancing in the middle of the restaurant by myself for some time now.

After dinner we went out clubbing and dancing at a beach bar that had sand on the floor and a beachy-theme. It was so crazy and fun! Our night was finished off back at the hotel with a bottle of wine and gazing at the stars and the city lights from the roof of our hotel. We found this secret ladder up to the roof and decided it was necessary to go up there and enjoy the scenery at night! Then we decided to go to bed. Tomorrow, we are are off to the country I’m most excited to see… Italy!

“Love is like a butterfly. Hold it too tight, it’ll crush, hold it too loose, it’ll fly away.” -proverb written on a little piece of wax paper from inside this Swiss chocolate ball, written in 5 other languages too. Cool.