Switzerland! Day 1 Lucerne and The Caves

We went to Switzerland this weekend! There was much debate throughout the week about where to stay and how long to stay, etc... Switzerland is much more expensive than most of the places we have visited (with the exception of Paris, maybe) Plus, we are always booking our hotel rooms last minute because we are never completely sure where we are heading the next weekend and my handsome haggler likes to hold out for the best offer. In addition, booking a hotel room here is not the same as booking a room in the States. It is actually pretty complicated to find a room for a "big" family like us. Hotel rooms start with one twin bed and then go up- it's not easy to find a place with 4 beds that is reasonably priced...

In addition, Switzerland is pretty fond of the whole "let's have one whole floor of the hotel share a bathroom" idea. Most of you know me well enough to know that I am not comfortable with this. Which made finding a decent hotel even more difficult. So...

Matt thought we should try camping. That's right, Ladies and Gentlemen, I said Camping. Now, most of you know that I am not a happy camper. Actually, I'm not a camper at all. I don't camp. Period. Matt practically had to sign an agreement when we got married. He knows I don't like camping and has never once, not one single time in all our nine years of marriage even so much as hinted that I should go camping. But, things were starting to look like I was going to have to share a bathroom with complete strangers, I actually began to consider the possibility of camping. I mean, if I was going to make a scarifice for my family and go camping, what better place than the Swiss Alps, right? We had the ability to rent equipment from the base for a good price and Matt found this very nice campground, situated in this gorgeous area between two waterfalls. I looked at the images on Google maps. It was beautiful. But I was not ready to resort to camping yet. I kept emailing hotels and they were almost all full, and it wasn't looking good. I told Matt I was willing- and then we saw the forecast: 70% chance of rain. I said that I did not want to go camping in the rain! We bantered back and forth about this a bit and Matt said, "We'll get a waterproof tent and you and the baby can sleep in the car." After going back and forth for 3 days about the camping thing, I finally gave in and said, "Okay, let's go camping in the Alps." So that evening, we went online to make our plans official and we had an email from the campgrounds that they were full and could accept no more reservations.
You all must know how very disappointed I was. :) Just heartbroken.
Actually, I was sad for Matt. He was pretty excited about it.

So, we stayed here instead. With our own bathroom, I might add! We did have to settle for sleeping in bunk beds. Like.... all of us. Poor Matthew's feet hung over the edge like 2 feet! The kids thought it was super cool, though- Isaac drew a picture of him and his dad sleeping on the same bunk!
The Hotel Lotchsberg: Before we made it to the hotel, though- we stopped in Lucerne and well,

We got very, very wet. My sweet Matthew had an itinerary all planned out for us, but he wasn't counting on the deluge that was awaiting us. Our first stop was the Lion Monument, which was designed as a memorial for the mercenary soldiers from central Switzerland who lost their lives while serving the French king Louis XVI during the French Revolution.
When the revolutionary masses attacked the royal Tuileries castle in Paris in 1792 the Swiss mercenary troops tried to defend the royal family and make sure the royals could escape.

We tried to cover Tori with the shade of the stroller and an extra rain coat, but as you can see, she insisted on sticking her head out of the shade so she could feel the rain and she got very wet! The only kids' raincoats I could find here were Spiderman ones, so Daphne is wearing a Spider man coat. My sweet and giving Isaac let Tori use his coat. Some of you may be wondering what kind of mother dresses her son in shorts and a t-shirt on such a rainy day. The answer? One who is tired of fighting with him. He refuses to wear pants and it's just not worth the fight. He never whines about being cold or uncomfortable, so I have learned to live and let live.

Here are a few more pics of us on our rainy sight-seeing tour! As we walked along the river, we found some enormous swans. All of the kids loved this part, and one of the swans was as tall as Isaac!


Here we are on the Chapel Bridge, which has paintings of Swiss history all along the ceiling:

A view from the Bridge:

My cute kiddos looking off the bridge!

After the bridge we stopped for some Lebanese food and some Swiss Chocolate! yay!

Isaac by the beautiful flower pillars that line the streets. The "castle" you see in the background is actually a hotel!

It was after this that we were hit with the complete deluge- we were utterly soaked even with our ponchos. Matt, Isaac and I all had shoes full of water and my pants were soaked to well up above the knee. Matt's jeans were drenched and of course Tori was soaking wet from sticking her head out of the stroller. The only one who was remotely dry was Princess Daphne.

After some confusion at the parking garage, we jumped into our warm, dry car and drove to the Berner Oberland, which is supposed to be the most beautiful part of Switzerland.

We had to stop on the side of the road for a picture of these gorgeous kids in front of this gorgeous background:

After we arrived at our lovely hotel accomodations, we met up with Liz and Steve and headed to the caves of St. Beatine. There are waterfalls all over Switzerland and these caves are at the top of one of the waterfalls. Here is of my gang at the top of the waterfall:

We couldn't take pictures inside the caves, but they were incredible! I was really impressed and the kids loved exploring the fascinating caves filled with stalagmites and waterfalls. Much better than I anticipated!

Tori and her Daddy- her favorite person in the whole world!

This is the waterfall that runs out from the caves we explored. So you hike to the top of the waterfall and kind of see it's source running through the inside of the mountain.

Walking back to the car...

After the caves, we drove with Liz and Steve over to this little field/play area near our hotel and ate our picnic dinners. Then we saw the most beautiful rainbow, a complete arch! It was so cool- although the whole thing doesn't show up in the picture.

Daphne said, "If you love the rainbow, run around this color wheel!" And so we did.

We did a little souvenier shopping- Matt and Isaac bought genuine Swiss Army knives from Switzerland! Isaac was so excited- that's an understatement- he was absolutely ecstatic! He just kept saying, "I can't believe I have a real knife!". And every day since then, he asks to get his knife out and look at it. (He's not allowed to get it out by himself yet.)

That was pretty much it for Day 1- we headed back to our cozy hotel bunk beds and got rested up for day two in the Berner Oberland.