The Unexpected Trip of a Lifetime

Hoi!

After arriving in Winterthur, the town that I’m living in, and quickly getting accustomed to the local area, my new friends and I decided it was time for our first trip. Since we only had the weekend and we hadn’t seen much of Switzerland yet, we chose to go to Luzern. Luzern is a small, scenic town in central Switzerland, and only about a two hour train ride from Winterthur.

Despite Luzern being a somewhat common place for people to visit in Switzerland, I didn’t expect much going into the trip. I’ve already planned many other trips to more popular tourist destinations  throughout Europe, so the quick visit to Luzern felt like more of a warm-up than a trip of a lifetime. However, I couldn’t have been any more wrong as Luzern ended up exceeding any expectations that I had and being a place I’ll always remember.

On Saturday morning, my friends and I arrived in Luzern with absolutely no idea what to do or what to see. Besides for the hotel that night and the train ride back, we hadn’t planned anything in advance.

When we started to walk around the town, I was immediately captivated by all of the views Luzern had to offer. Every single street was fascinating and we walked around the town for hours, only stopping to get sweets and coffee at a Café or to look inside one of the fancy stores that Luzern is filled with.

Besides having dazzling streets and being a shopper’s dream, the town also sits on a lake, with two famous bridges that go across it. We crossed the bridges multiple times without ever getting tired of looking at the incredible place that surrounded us. Most people likely just walk across the bridge once or twice, but the feeling that it gave me was something that I wanted to have over and over.

The bridges and all of the streets in the town were extraordinary and already enough to make the trip worthwhile, but that wasn’t even close to the highlight of the trip. The best part came when we decided to take a risk and venture into the unknown.

From the moment my friends and I got to Luzern, all of us noticed a white palace-like building that overlooked the entire town. The building looked like something straight out of a Disney movie and we took turns coming up with theories of what it could actually be. We eventually found out it was a hotel, but we still had no idea how to get up there or whether it was even possible. In the end, we decided to just figure it out for ourselves.

After trying to get up to the hotel a few different ways, we finally found a small trail that we thought led up to it. Thankfully, at the end of the trail was the hotel, but also the best view that I’ve ever seen in my life. My friends and I stood there for about an hour taking in the panoramic scenes of the entire town.  Not only did we get a view of a lifetime, we also went into the hotel and had coffee and dessert. Being in the hotel made feel like royalty, as it was just as grand and luxurious inside as it appeared to be from the outside. My friends and I sat there for a couple of hours and connected with each other, all while still being able to see the whole town from our table.  

It wasn’t until after the trip  that I looked online at what to do in Luzern. Ironically, I found lists filled with museums and excursions that we didn’t do and not a single mention of the hotel or the views from it. It made me realize that you shouldn’t always do what is advertised the most or what tourists usually do in a particular city or town. Sometimes, you have to take a chance because you never know what you could discover.

Aside from the trip to Luzern, day to day life has been tremendous as well. I’m currently writing this blog while having a Cappuccino in one of my favorite spots in Winterthur, Locanda Trivisano, after just taking a class in Portfolio Theory. The trip was truly memorable, but living here in Winterthur and being an exchange student is something I’ll hopefully never take for granted.

I look forward to writing more about my daily life here in Winterthur in future blogs and showcasing all of the aspects of studying abroad.

Till then,

Radek