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It is another stunning, clear and warm day. Our main mission today was to visit the Transport Museum which by anyone's standard would not seem exciting. We had visited here before a few years back and remembered it as something special. We headed off down to the lake and boarded a paddle steamer which would let us off at the first stop. The view from the boat is superb with the mountains standing out in the background, Mt Pilatus standing alone in a different direction and the lake clear and calm with Lucern lining the fringes.
Arriving at the Museum we bought tickets to the Chocolate Factory and the Main Museum. The Main Museum was free because it is covered by the Swiss Pass. Our Chocolate Factory trip took us through a journey of chocolate from growing the beans in Ghana through to producing and selling chocolate. We sat in round carraiges that took us to individual audio visual stations that explained a particular function. It wasn't boring and we were well informed all about chocolate and ended up with some nice samples to munch upon. Nice.
We then moved into the main museum of various types of transport
from trains, cars, boats, air craft and space exploration. Each section was full of interactive stations and simulators to try and covered transport in Switzerland from early to current forms. As we know Switzerland is a leader in all forms of transport that connect and inter-connect with each other so there was a lot to see. I was particularly impressed with the display of the Gotthard Tunnel Construction. It had a "to scale" model of the whole 57 kms of the tunnel showing the rock types drilled through with samples of the rocks, together with photographs of the drilling along the way. There was a model of the drilling equipment which showed the front drilling face through to the back where the debris was taken away. What an amazing piece of engineering. It is now in use and takes freight from Rotterdam port in Holland through to a port in Italy so that there are now no barriers in the way of cross country transport.
Other sectors were also fascinating but the space section was excellent too even though the Swiss haven't launched any craft but have been involved in the technology.
We had the kids (6 and
A cross section of the Alps showing the Gotthard Pass
The colours are the different rock types with samples shown as well. The line near the bottom is the tunnel through the Alps 8) with us all day and they were never bored as there was so much for them to look at and do. They did hang out for a play in the play ground later though. 5 hours later we emerged from the Museum, completely blown away with the size and interest of the place. This is a "Must See" facility with any visit to Lucern. Other things we had planned to do for the day didn't happen as we ran out of time. It would have been nice to see the weeping, dying lion and the glacier park. Also the old town wall with it's towers to explore. Oh well, another time perhaps for the family if they ever return.
Our day was completed by Tracey and me doing a spot of shopping as there are so many sales on. We got the most amazing bargains and our 50% reduced prices were reduced again on a second pair such that I got some nice blue suede shoes for $9 and Tracey another two pairs for very low prices. We somehow got ourselves back to the hotel after spotting the odd landmarks along the way.
Finally, our day was rounded off by a superb tapas meal in an outdoor restaurant in very mild weather.
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