Vienna: What I would recommend to friends as tourists

One friend will visit Vienna and asked me things I would recommend. I said oh I should have some blogs about it, let me check and send them to you. But when I checked, I realized that some of my favorited places have not been written at all. I think it is a typical psychology problem that one always waits until everything is perfect before doing ‘important’ work, and one might not reach this ‘perfect’ status for ever. Sometimes it is better off to just do it!

Anyway, for friends who visit Vienna for the first time, and are looking for somethings that are different with other cities, somethings very ‘Viennese’, my recommendation lists are:

Strasbourg- Eating and Shopping

The most pretty place in Strasbourg is at its southwest corner called "Petite France". It looks like Colmar style but the half-timber houses are less colorful. Apart from "Petite France" and Cathedral square, other areas are more ordinary but abundant of small shops, large malls and good restaurants.   

Colmar- a surprisingly pretty French town

Colmar is such a lovely town that I am very surprised that I didn't hear about it earlier. It is small, but very explorable. After walking around the twin several times we still found new enjoyable things: narrow alleys, little canal with cute decorations, shops with beautiful tea set, wine, candy and handcrafts, art galleries, and even just different lightings on the ancient colorful buildings already satisfied me.

Lucerne: mountain in lakes, last battle, and semi-direct democracy

The landscape near Lucerne is unique: lakes surrounded by mountains, which again hide lakes in. A boat trip took us from Lucerne to Viznau train station, from where we went up the earliest European mountain railway to the Rigi mountain. Although not very tall, but Rigi mountain offers a gorgeous view from the steep Swiss Alps to the relatively flat Swiss Plateau. I was surprised that Switzerland was not completely surrounded by mountains, but can yet keep so many years out-of-wars. The last war in Swiss history was 1847, happened to locate near Lucerne.

The beautiful Lucerne and Swiss Guard

Lucerne has everything I can imagine for a beautiful small city. In nature, it is surrounded by mountains and lakes, and a river goes though the city. In history and culture, Lucerne has its history for more than 1300 years, and yet today the old town was kept well. There exist many pretty architectures from different time periods: churches, wooden bridges and city wall. But Lucerne not only has history, it also has progressive modern parts. Starting from the old town, we can see modern buildings grow in all directions especially along the Lake Lucerne.

Tour of Switzerland on trains: GoldenPass Line Lucerne-Interlaken-Montreux

Train is the best vehicle for touring Switzerland. For the first time visit, I chose the GoldenPass train-line from Lucerne-Interlaken-Montreux. This route not only presented us breathtaking sceneries of lakes surrounding by Alps mountains, but also gave us chances to visit several lovely Swiss cities. 

Canterbury: The cathedral city for Church of England

Canterbury is an important historical city for England. In the heart of the old city, there is the Canterbury cathedral which has been a major goal of pilgrimage since the twelve century, and is the home for the leader of the Church of England.