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.

After Rupture of Ligaments (ACL & MCL) in ski

Apart from the pain at the very beginning, the feeling of ligaments rupture is rather weird than painful: a dangling leg which does not listen to my brain, but always announces its existence by making walking difficult. A more unexpected trouble was a psychology depress feeling which lasted for the entire 2nd week. 

Three castles in Southest England: Bodiam, Leeds and Dover

Bodiam and Leeds castles are both in water: Bodiam is elegant; Leeds has a large park. Dover is a real castle, for war.

My footprints on English towns along eastsouth coast-line

The towns along the east-south coast-line in England have different features. My impression on them and selected photos.

Chinese restaurants in West: be serious before "authentic"

When complaining about the bad taste of some Chinese restaurants in the west, people usually refereed the reason to be "not authentic”. But I think whether the dish is “authentic” is not the most crucial thing for tasting. It is non-sense to discuss about "authentic" before the restaurants take cooking seriously. 

For instance, almost all the Chinese buffets I have tried in USA do not have a serious chief. They only cook the ingredients to be eatable and then mix in some sweet-sour sauce. Sweet-sour Chicken, sweet-sour pork, sweet-sour beef, etc... Every dish tastes sweet-sour, how possiblely can they taste good? The problem is their attitude of cooking, rather than that the receipt has been revised after Chinese food entered into USA.

Flying on the sky--my ski beginner notes with pain yet joy

Ski gave me more pain than any other sports, but no matter how much I complained, I was always attracted back, magically.

Not kidding, ski is probably the sport which gave me the most pain, not because of falling down (I was too slow to feel pain when falling), but because of the sore muscle and painful knee suffering from the pressure.  Every time after ski, I felt my whole body was broken apart, every piece of my body was screaming and complaining how much they hated ski. No need to mention how “user-unfriendly” this sport is: strict requirements for the weather and geology, thus every year when I restarted this sport I was nervous how much I still remembered from the last year. Oh also the cost for the equipments (rental or purchase) and entrances to the ski resorts are very expensive.

An Italian family's adventure in England: from barn to hotel-res

This was a really interesting experience to me. Staying in a hotel converted from a 16th traditional English barn & stable, managed by an Italian family who wanted to have an adventure on life, and this family's passion on cooking makes this hotel-restaurant definitely one of the best in my life!

English villages: medieval timber houses everywhere

During the last Christmas and New Year holiday, we explored several villages, coastal towns and castles. Among all the interesting site seeings, the most impressive thing to me is actually a smaller and more common feature: the medieval timber houses. What impress me is not only that the 600-700 years old houses are still breathing (people are still living inside them), but also how commonly you can see them! 

A collection of my 2015 hand-drawing maps

With probably the world worst sense of direction, I always feel frustrated that I can not remember where I have been. Especially I love exploring new places so much. To help myself build images of the cities I have visited, I started to draw my own maps after touring around. Just like writing notes after reading books, I also draw notes after reading cities. Thank goodness, it works really well to me!

Austria | Graz(III)- Fed up by stories

People love traveling for different reasons, for great photos, for tasty food, or for experiencing other cultures. For me, the most exciting thing is hearing good stories, no matter historical or scientific stories. Feeling that I understand the world a little more is always fantastic. We are lucky to meet a wonderful guide Sibylle Gauby in this Graz trip, who is erudite and humorous, telling a lot of interesting stories, definitely the best guild I have met so far.