Quiet Sunday

Three days in, and we are still not used to the time change yet. We woke up at 10:30am... However, we deserved a break; we did hike all over town the day before. I'm sure our bodies were exhausted.

We woke up to the sound of church bells ringing. Switzerland doesn't have one designated religion, but does have a large Luthern population. There are a few churches around our hostel, so plenty of music from the bells. It seemed like we were going to have a nice relaxing day.

In Switzerland, Sunday is quiet day. No one is supposed to mow their lawn, or take out trash; pretty much don't do anything that's going to make a lot of noise.

  We took a walk into town and explored some new areas. Since it was practically noon, we were getting pretty hungry because we hadn't eaten breakfast. So, we started to walk towards the nearest Migros. The largest one we know of is in Old City Luzern.

As we started to walk through Old City, we realized most of the shops were closed, there were less people in the streets, and most looked like lost tourists... just like us. Oh great... Please let the Migros be open, we are starving! As we got closer to the Migros we knew we were in trouble. No lights on, door closed... No food. At this point, we are getting pretty crabby. Both Brett and I turn into little monsters when we are hungry, so it's never a good thing when we are hungry together. On to the next plan...

We decide our best option is to go find a local bakery. Yes, it's going to be a little bit more expensive than Migros, but we needed to do something. We get to the first bakery and luckily, the continue to bake bread throughout the day. Fresh loaf of yummy bread waiting for us... 1.20chf... Sounds good to us. We grabbed our bread, then headed off to find something to put on our bread.

About 4-5 years ago, I was in southern Switzerland with my family. There seemed to be a meat shop and a cheese shop every block, but in Luzern, it wasn't as popular. It would have been really helpful on that quiet Sunday.

We walked into another little food shop looking for cheese. Not what we were really looking for... they had some already made sandwiches and pastries. Even though we were still super hungry, we still had to try not to buy food out because it is very expensive in Switzerland. We asked the woman inside the little shop where we could possible find some cheese. She said everything closes on Sunday, except there is an open Coop in the underground level of the train station. Perfect!

We grab our bread and head out down the street to the main train station. It didn't occur to us yet that we may not be the only hungry people in Luzern. We get there and the place was packed. We grabbed a package of sliced Swiss cheese and a half liter of fruit juice. We were so hungry from walking around at this point we couldn't wait to... Stand in line for a half hour. Wait, what?! Yes, we stood there with out food in line for a half hour because in was so busy.

Finally, we made it out alive. We didn't even want to walk all the way back to the hostel to eat. We found the first open bench next to Lake Luzern and enjoyed ourselves a little picnic. The bread was soft and baked fresh that day, the cheese was a yummy Swiss cheese and the fruit juice was delicious. The fruit juice in Switzerland is always 100% juice. It's slightly pulpy, very fruity, but not overly sweet and so refreshing. Since our tummies were finally happy, we could stop glaring at each other like they were a sandwich.

So, we learned the hard way... Everything in Switzerland, even I'm the tourist city of Luzern, closes on Sundays. We won't be making that mistake again. Oh well, we still had a great day of exploring and hanging out by the lake. We later spent time at the hostel looking for apartments. Time to get some rest for the week ahead...