Whirlwind tour of Luzern
 

Hi,

Our family of four (kids are 16 and 9yrs old) will be visiting Switzerland starting 7th October through 17th Oct this year. We land in Zurich on the 7th (early morning) and after a half day's sightseeing will be proceeding to Luzern by train at around noon. We then have till 4pm the following day to look around Luzern after which we move on to Lauterbrunnen. My current plan is to walk around and experience the old town on the 7th and do Mt Pilatus next day with an early start. My questions are:
1. Can we finish Pilatus by 1pm so that we will have time for the rail museum?
2.Should we drop the idea of Pilatus altogether considering that we are going to be doing Jungfrau, Muottas Muragl and Diavolezza later during the trip?
3.Is there any thing else that should not be missed in Luzern?

We love exploring lovely towns, enjoying good scenery and doing easy treks. Not too much into art galleries. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Indigo5

"We love exploring lovely towns, enjoying good scenery and doing easy treks", then you'll love Lucern. Once at the rail station there is a tourist information office, get maps/brochures from here. Lucern is a great city to stroll around in and get lost.

Not sure what you mean by rail museum, if it is the same place as the transport museum, the place is huge and deserves a few hours, so no you won't be able to travel from Mt Pilatus to the transport museum and have a look around in just three hours.

Thanks for the info. Yes,I meant the transport museum. Just thought it might interest the kids - especially because it seems to be pretty highly rated in discussion forums.

An important question I'm hoping to get an answer to in this forum is - "Is it worth squeezing in Mt Pilatus on day 2 or is it a better idea to explore Lucern furthur?" Is the Pilatus experience very different from Jungfrau, Muottas Muragl and Diavolezza? As I mentioned earlier, we will be doing these later .

Play it according to the weather forecast. That's the best way to go.

You can walk from Lucerne down to the Verkehrsmuseum, a lovely walk along the lake.

The Verkehrsmuseum is fun but only if the kids aren't too tired.

You might want to put a short boat ride on your list of possible things to do too.

When we were last in Lucerne, we visited the Glacier Garden. There was a school group (10-year-olds, perhaps) who were having a great time learning about glaciers and geology. It's located next to the Lion Monument, and both are a very walkable distance from the old town center. The Transport Museum is about 1.5 miles from the old town center.

http://www.gletschergarten.ch/en/main.html

Hey, thanks all of you! Please keep those suggestions coming in. I'm having a hard time making up my mind. But like Schuler says I'll probably have to play it by the ear keeping the weather forecast in view.

IMO you can easily explore a lot of the so-called "old town" in way way WAY less than even a few hours. Once you've gone by the various shopping opportunities; you'll probably be just as, if not more interested in the bridge(s), perhaps feeding the swans, peering at the Old Jesuit Church and yes by all means the transit museum especially if the CHILDREN are interested in such.

I like Lucern a lot and I also agree the weather will play a major part in the possibility of going out of town and ascending. One other easy 1/2 day trip besides Pilatus is to take the local transport up to Engleberg (takes an hour each way) and then taking the three-stage ascent to Mt. Titlis...it can easily be done in an early half day

We also walked part of the rampart walls. Nice views of the city, and a couple of towers you can climb.

http://travelguide.all-about-switzer...ts-towers.html