Today our destination was Zurich. It was a little cloudy in the morning and we thought we could check out some museums while we were there. There are trains that go to Zurich at least every hour from Lucerne so we could take our time this morning. On Sundays almost all the stores are closed. This meant that wandering the streets of Zurich was pretty peaceful. There were people out and about, but not huge crowds. There were more people at the parks and sunning themselves near the river. Jef remembered getting a hot chocolate at the Lindt store last time we were there. However, after checking out the Lindt/Bachmann store we discovered they did not offer hot chocolate. We had to find some at a cafe down near the water. We did not mind. We enjoyed relaxing in the plaza savoring our hot chocolate.

After our treat, we boarded a boat to tour Lake Zurich. (Do you see a theme with our travels? Trains and boats) It’s called a mini lake tour and it lasts about 55 minutes. There were two stops. One was at a nice park in which quite a few people disembarked and the other was a suburb looking area where all the houses on the water had boat garages. The views were spectacular, of course.

We had a small rain shower as the boat docked and we found a place to grab a hot dog, fries, and a beer near the water. I wanted to check out the National Museum Zurich also known as Landesmuseum. It is one of the most visited museums in Switzerland. We walked from the lake along the canal to the museum. We crossed a bridge that had a ton of love locks on it (some were even engraved). There were a lot more people out in the afternoon enjoying the sun.

The National Museum is free with the Swiss pass and they gave us a token to put our backpack in a locker. The building is massive. I’m not sure we saw everything, but we put in a good effort. There was a special exhibit on forests on the top floor that I enjoyed coming from an area that relied on the industry. On the second floor they have the permanent collection and I loved that they maintained some rooms with the wood ceilings and walls. My favorite exhibits included the china collections with old broken pottery, cutlery, and keys and a massive display of rings from around the world. We had fun climbing up to the tower and viewing some watch collections.

I think this museum had something for everyone to enjoy. They even have a collection for families to see together. I think it includes some kind of scavenger hunt for children. There were also special collections on Zurich and Swiss Press Photos as well as World Press Photos. As I mentioned before, I’m not sure we saw everything because the map is fairly vague, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

The train ride back was fairly busy for a Sunday evening. Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny enough to go up a mountain we haven’t visited. If not we may head to Interlaken. It’s the last day to use our Swiss pass so we want to make sure to take advantage of it.