We woke up to rain. No big deal. We had our in-room coffee and some fruit and yogurt we’d bought and decided to go over to the art gallery in the KKL, a big modern conference center next to the train station. On our way there we stopped into one of the myriad bakeries and each got a roll. I love mine–like a French brioche but lighter. They had almost exclusively landscape paintings, in rooms based on time progression and styles. There was a printed guide which was quite expressive in a literary fashion. The curation of the show really made you see how painting styles evolved through realism, impressionism, surrealism etc. Very enjoyable. In addition they have contemporary art workshop going. The artist is Roland Roos–very interesting guy, here with some charming staff, making cloth books with his wordless stories. Visitors are encouraged to go into the workshop and interact with the artists. Loved it!

You can see the artist here. He’s the bald guy:

As we were leaving the woman at the ticket desk told us not to miss the balcony so we went up. This is a really cool building all around. The large balcony has beautiful views of the lake and a low, subtly reflective ceiling:

From there, we walked in the rain, still to a small street market set up on this side of the river. And that’s when we saw it–our favorite place in Lucerne so far: The Nespresso store!

I really wanted to buy the machine like we have in our hotel room but it is not practical at all–doesn’t even have the right plug. And they sell them at Amazon, Macys and Sur la Table anyway. We hung out there and got some free coffee to taste. It was fun!
We had had enough of the rain so we went back to have some lunch at Dean and David which I discovered is a German franchise. I had a chicken curry bowl and Ken had a wrap. Satisfying. We came back to the room and did the usual rainy day stuff.
Around 6:30 the rain stopped. Off we went. We walked across the river and up to the Musegg wall and castle. The views going up there were stunning:



And finally we climbed a tower.
Dinner. We went to Da Tomasso which had been recommended by the Italian couple from the day before. While the prosecco was fresh and bubbly, Ken, eating his dish, said “This is probably the worst pasta I’ve ever eaten!” I had to laugh. It was all pretty bad.
We’ve decided the the food scene is really an obstacle to our pleasure here. Spoiled by Italy, I guess and bratty as that sounds, it’s true for us.
We walked home over the old bridge and that was that.