Lucerne

 On Saturday, September 24th, we went across the street to the Von Rotz pastry shop for a continental breakfast.

It was raining, and the weather for the whole day didn't look promising.  Eva had suggested some indoor activities in Lucerne, so we got on the train.

First stop was the Bourbaki Panorama, which we had never heard of.  Wikipedia says:

"The Bourbaki Panorama is a circular panoramic painting depicting the internment of the French Armée de l'Est in neutral Switzerland at the end of the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. The army, led by General Charles-Denis Bourbaki had been defeated in the field while attempting to raise the Siege of Belfort and fled to Switzerland. The Swiss admitted the French soldiers, and local villagers and the Swiss Red Cross provided aid.

"In 1876 the Belgium Panorama Society commissioned Swiss artist Édouard Castres, who had accompanied the Armée de l'Est as a medical volunteer, to produce a panorama for display in Switzerland as a tourist attraction. Castres and a team of ten artists produced a circular painting, measuring 115 metres (377 ft) in length, to be viewed from the centre. The work was intended to make the viewer appear as if within the scene, an effect heightened by the use of three-dimensional figures and objects placed in front of the painting. The work was exhibited at Geneva from 1881 but transferred to Lucerne in 1889 where it remains today. The painting was twice cut down and its current height of 9.8 metres (32 ft) is around a third less than the original."

Such panoramic paintings were fairly common in the nineteenth century, most showing landscapes or battle scenes.  A few survive today.

The Bourbaki Panorama, with a narration sometimes in English, was more interesting than we expected and we spent a lot of time there.

Since we wee in the neighborhood, we visited the Lion Monument, dedicated to Louis XVI's Swiss guards, killed defending him and Marie Antoinette when the Paris mob and National Guard stormed the Tuileries Palace in 1792.

We wandered back to the Art Museum, in the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the renovation of the Lyon Opera and, of course, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.  However, the Museum had a special David Hockney exhibition, which raised the entry fee to 25 francs, too much for us, considering that we aren't special Hockney fans.  A World Band Festival was going on, and we listened to a brass band outside for a while.

Lunchtime.  Back across the river to a pizza place attached to the Migros store.  They didn't have pizza, but they did have Flammekuche, a sort of pizza made with pretzel dough, cheese, onions, bacon.

To get back to the station, we crossed the wooden, covered Kapellbrücke, the Chapel Bridge, which we had, of course, done every other time we've been to Lucerne.  

We got back in time to take a walk with Eva in Zug (umbrellas at hand but unneeded), ending up at the Freiruum, a huge food court, where we met Eva's sister Silvia and brother-in-law Kurt (Andreas was away on business) and had a fun dinner of mezes, beer and gelato.