Day 9 Florence to Lucerne Monday 30th December 2013:

After a goodnight sleep and feeling rested from such an amazing final night in Italy.

We made our way to the dining room at 6:45 am for included breakfast in the hotel.

Some of the group were nursing hangovers from a long night of partying at Space Disco the night before!

After breakfast we checked out of our hotel rooms and took our bags to the coach at 7:15 am.

We then departed Italy full of many amazing memories and new experiences and made our way to Lucerne at 7:30 am.

As we made our way towards our first service stop of the day,

Our Trip Manager Rebecca we played some European Trivia in teams of 2 people.

With the winning team winning a Switzerland beanie each!

The trivia consisted of questions from our walking tours in Europe as well as our history lessons on our way to each destination.

After our European Trivia was won by 2 our 2 New Zealand friends:

We arrived at our first service stop of the day in Milan at 10:30 am.

We had 20 minutes to stretch our legs and purchase coffee and snacks for the trip to Lucerne.

After boarding the coach as we made our way towards the Swiss Alps,

Our Trip Manager Rebecca explained our itinerary for Lucerne which included:

Seeing a glimpse of the stunning Lake Como as we made our way into Lucerne, viewing the Lion Monument, a included tour of Harry’s Swiss Watch Center including opportunity to purchase a Swiss watch or Swiss Army Knife with a 10% discount from Contiki, seeing the Wooden Chapel Bridge, having free time to explore Lucerne before making our way to our hotel for our included dinner and having a free night in Lucerne.

As we made our way through the Swiss Alps we saw an amazing sight snow covered tree top outside the coach window which was so beautiful and magical!

As a special treat when we stopped at our service stop at 1pm Rebecca lets us stop and play in the snow and takes photos for 30 minutes!

Which was so magical I thought our stop in Austria had a lot of snow but here in Switzerland everywhere you looked you saw so much snow!

After taking lots of photos of magical snow of the Swiss Alps we boarded the coach at 1:30 pm and made our way towards Lucerne.

We arrived in Lucerne at 2:30 pm and hopped off the coach and followed Rebecca as she guided as to the Lion Monument also know as the Lion of Lucerne.

The Lion Monument is a giant dying lion carved out of sandstone rock above a pond at the east end of Lucerne.

We learned from Rebecca it was designed as a memorial for the Swiss Guards who lost their lives while serving the French King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

After seeing the Lion Monument we boarded the coach and made our way into the city for our included tour of Harry’s Swiss Watch Center at 3:30 pm.

We made our way inside and met our guide who showed us through the Watch Center and explained how Swiss watches are made and showed us the entire collection of Swiss watches which range from 90 CHF (Swiss Francs) to 9500 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Which converts to between $136 -$13,600 Australian Dollars!

After our tour had concluded at 4 pm we had free time to explore Lucerne before meeting at 5:30 pm to make our way to our hotel for the night.

For free time in Lucerne I found a group of friends and we decided we couldn’t visit Switzerland without buying some famous Swiss Chocolate!

We asked a local the best place for Swiss Chocolate and they said the Lindt Chocolate Shop and gave us directions which was a 20 minute walk away.

After making our way inside the Lindt Chocolate Shop we were amazed how much chocolate there was everywhere you looked there shelves full of every kind of chocolate you could imagine!

After stocking up on so much Lindt chocolate we made our way back into the city centre and did some more exploring before meeting up the rest of the group at 5 pm.

The coach picked us up from the city centre and we made our way towards our hotel for the night.

We arrived at our Barbas Hotel Lucerne (formely known Lowengraben Jail Hotel Lucerne) at 6 pm.

This hotel was the most interesting hotel of the entire trip!

This hotel is set in an former 1862 prison!

The dorms we stayed in are former prison cells!

This was super interesting and something I wasn’t expecting to experience in Europe!

After checking into our rooms and getting changed for our night in Lucerne we made our way downstairs to the dining room for our included dinner at 6:30 pm.

After our included dinner at the hotel we had a free night

Rebecca organized to take the group to a local bar at 7:30pm which most of the group went along to.

I decided to have a walk around Lucerne after dinner at 7pm as it looked so beautiful when exploring during free time.

I explored Lucerne and found the Wooden Chapel Bridge which looked so beautiful at night being lit up by Christmas lights.

After exploring Lucerne I made my way back to the hotel and decided to have an early night as we had to depart by 5:45 am as the drive to Paris was the longest of the trip.

Full of excitement I fell asleep that tomorrow was the day I had been dreaming off since I booked Contiki, New Years Eve in Paris!

Safe Travels!

Campbell 🙂