On a European road trip, we spent a few hours at a pit stop in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Welcome! If you’re new here and have stumbled on this blog through the magical and mythical powers of the Internet, my name is Ashley. This blog post is about a journey and road trip I took throughout Europe, but usually I write posts about travel, books, movies, and the television shows I’m watching throughout the years. It’s a bit of a digital diary and archive of sorts.

Some context for this blog post: in 2024 I won a Fulbright, then I lost it when the country I was selected for refused to give me a visa after a four month wait. It was a confusing time for me, as I had quit my job for this opportunity, and suddenly I was left unemployed and without any prospects ahead of me.

I did end up taking a year off in order to focus on my goals, as I was in the right financial situation and had enough savings, and in December I decided to take a leap of faith and book a five country Europe tour through EF Ultimate Break.

I’ll be writing a review of the company and tour on my blog, but I paid about $4,300 with all the excursions and whatnot to roam around Europe. I needed to unplug and not think, and I could afford the tour that would give me that.

As I mentioned before, I’m going to be writing blog posts for each of the countries and cities I visited during this trip, except for Liechtenstein, as we only went to that country for only thirty minutes as a bathroom break on the way to Switzerland.

Today’s blog post is about how somewhere on the road we stopped in Lucerne, Switzerland. We started the day off in Munich, Germany, then drove all the way to Engleberg, where our final leg of the tour was going to take place. Along the way, we stopped in Liechtenstein for that bathroom break, then spent the rest of the afternoon in Lucerne before heading off to Engleberg.

Let’s get into what we did during our brief time in Lucerne!

Lucerne is a city full of incredible history, and a lot of it is walkable.

When we arrived in Lucerne, our main tour guide for the trip herded us together and immediately took us to the lion memorial for the Swiss guards who fell during the French Revolution. Carved into the actual rock, this lion appears to be dying in the throes of battle, making this such a striking, poignant sight for those passing by.

The one thing I noticed immediately once we stepped off of the bus and headed to the memorial was how crowded Lucerne was. We began this trip in Venice, which was really crowded as the day would go on and people were more awake, but the crowdedness in Lucerne felt worse to me.

A lot of the tourists were Indian, Chinese, and Korean judging from the languages I was able to recognize and understand. It just made getting around a little more difficult while we here, as some areas were really packed with people and they were not afraid to shove you. I know it’s a cultural difference and I respect it as someone who’s been in and studied all of these languages and cultures, I just was unprepared.

Anyways, I bring this up because our tour guide then took us to a gift shop on the water, and it was a complete and utter madhouse. He got us a coupon for a free keychain at the top level, but the chocolates and all were very much overpriced when it came to it (it was about 2-3 francs more than the local Migros or Coop, which are the grocery stores in Switzerland).

This is a peaceful town where you could really just relax if you find some of the peaceful pockets.

I collected my keychain and fled into the town of Lucerne with some of the people in my group, then we wandered around for a bit. One of the main highlights of the area is the river and the historical covered bridge that connects one side of the town to the other.

This bridge wasn’t a normal bridge back in the day. It was actually a fort, hence it was covered, and those inside could be protected from things being flung at them when invaders came into the town. Like many other places in Switzerland, this is a town where you’re going to get stunning views in several different parts of the city, so we spent most of our time here just wandering around.

We did pop into shops here and there. I wanted to pick up my Switzerland pins before we went to Engleberg, and it’s seriously a good thing I did do this, as when we went to Engleberg a lot of the shops were closed early or shut down at random hours because it was a small town.

I did not get to buy anything there, so Lucerne was the perfect pit stop to get the souvenirs I needed. My pin collection would feel a little neglected if I did not get anything from here! We left after about three hours wandering the city for our final destination on this trip, which was a little over an hour away.

I imagine during the off season that Lucerne would be more relaxing than what we experienced while we were here. I would come back to see what some of the other main highlights of the town are, but I don’t know if I could handle some of the crowds in the main section. It was a great stop though, albeit a bit expensive like the rest of Switzerland.

I was starting to get sticker shock wandering into the stores, that’s for sure. My budget was blown here.

That’s all for this post. I definitely recommend visiting if you’re ever in the area!

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