We woke up early this morning so we could walk around the city of Fribourg. Thankfully, there was free breakfast at our hostel! We walked into the dining room and the breakfast spread was beautiful. There was cereal, home-made (amazing) bread, butter/jams/nutella-esque spread, a cheese and meat tray, and fruit. They also had a pretty great coffee machine that we could use, as well.
We checked out after breakfast and got to store our bags downstairs while we walked around.
The city was beautiful, but also very quiet for a Friday. Most of the stores didn't open until about 11 a.m., so we were walking through mostly-empty streets. There are pros and cons to that - I feel like we didn't really get a chance to see the city when it was awake!
Exploring Freiburg
We wandered into the big church in the old town, Nikolauskirche, and it was beautiful to wander around it. It was also convenient to wander into because it had started to rain a little bit. By the time we had our fill of the church, the rain had abated.
View of the Nikolauskirche from the street
The beautiful stained glass windows and artwork inside the Nikolauskirche.
Continuing our walk, we found one of the large bridges in town and took the stairs down to be by the river and the old town.
The beautiful scene of the old city of Freiburg - it has the largest old town in Europe!
The view of one of the bridges in Freiburg on our way down to the old town.
Once we got to the bottom, found a beautiful covered bridge that I had read about before arriving in Freiburg.
Pont de Berne
Pont de Berne
About halfway through our wanderings, Amy and Eric literally forced me to climb to the top of a large hill up to one of the old watch towers of Fribourg. The view was pretty, but good God, that was a terrible hike up the hill.
View from the top of the huge mountain. Yes, the bridge in this picture is the one pictured earlier.
There were a lot of sheep around!
We then continued our journey BACK down the hill so that we could walk through the old town.
Part of the old town wall in Fribourg
The Pont du Milieu
Some of the cobblestoned streets of the old town
Once we made it through the city of Fribourg, I grabbed a cup of coffee, while Amy and Eric shared some gelato. We made the executive decision to leave Fribourg a few hours earlier than planned because we had seen what we thought we could see in the amount of time that we had.
Training from Fribourg to Lucerne was a much more pleasant experience than our travels the day before. With the shorter distance between our point of origin and our destination, we got to Lucerne around 3:30.
We wandered along the lake to our hostel. I have missed being by the water! There was also a nice park, as well as snobby-looking, members-only boat club houses.
Our view as we walked to our hostel along Lake Lucerne
Our walk to the hostel
Our hostel was about a 2 minute walk from the beaches of Lake Lucerne - we could see it from our first floor room.
This beautiful lake-side spot near our hostel.
Once we got checked in and settled a bit, we needed to get some dinner. I convinced Amy and Eric to at least go to a restaurant where I could get some fondue.
We wandered into the city of Lucerne with blue skies and beautiful weather. It was too bad that we had gotten into the city too late to get to the top of Mount Pilatus that day, but oh well!
We made it to the fondue place and I had my special Swiss fondue!
Yum! Moite-moite fondue in Lucerne.
Once we were done with dinner, we walked around a little more and then headed home. I really liked the hostel that we stayed at in Lucerne! There was a kitchen available for cooking our own meals if we wished and the rooms were great - we had a little patio area facing the lake and there were lockers in the room for which we received a key for! Such a simple thing, but it was so nice to not have to worry about my things while we were out for the day or sleeping at night.
It was another early night, but after wandering around a large hill, the entire city of Fribourg, and then traveling to Lucerne, we were, once again, pretty beat.
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