398. Lucerne | Hotel des Balances

One of my most memorable hotel stays was a couple summers ago during my solo Eurotrip. I stayed in Lucerne for a few nights, at the Hotel des Balances. I've always loved Switzerland. The weather is always perfect (well, whenever I am there it is), the people are really friendly and well-dressed, and it's a great place to relax. The first time I visited Lucerne was with my mom in 2007. We did all the touristy sites that time, so when I went back to the city by myself, I mostly just stayed at/around my hotel to relax and catch up on my blog. (I also took a side-trip to Zurich one day) That was my first time travelling by myself. I planned the entire trip - spending only 2-3 days at each city, staying at many different hotels, and trying to fit way too much into my few weeks there. Needless to say, I was quite burnt out by the middle of it so I needed the "break" in Lucerne to rest a bit.


Hotel des Balances is a luxury hotel in the middle of Old Town. It has a beautiful facade and quite a small entrance.



After checking in, I got complimentary welcome drink vouchers and chocolates.


My room was a "Double Room with River View".


If you ever stay here, I highly recommend you get a River View as opposed to a City View.
The view from the balcony is perfect!


After settling in, I went to the hotel's restaurant to get dinner and catch up on my blog. I think I wrote THIS POST when I was sitting here! So cool reading back on my old posts hahah.


The view from my table


The amuse bouche. I don't really remember what it was..



As you can see, I stayed here for quite a long time.


I had a tub and shower in my washroom, which opened into the bedroom. After my dinner, I went on a nice stroll around the area before coming back for a looooong relaxing bath with Hotel Costes music of course:





The ceiling of the washroom reminds me of Rolls Royce ceilings.



I sat at the same table for breakfast.





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This post archived in: Reviews

303. Lucerne + Zurich

Before I leave for NYC, I'm going to try to post as much as I can of the remainder of my Europe photos from this summer. Keyword here is try. I can't believe Christmas is merely a few days away!! Not prepared for it yet and certainly not in the spirit of it either. We still haven't gotten any snow and I haven't gotten any Christmas shopping done yet.

Here are some photos from my short stay in Switzerland back in May.


That was my second time visiting Lucerne. I will always remember the feeling I got when I saw this bridge in person for the first time ever. When I was really young, I saw a photo of it in a travel brochure. I think I cut it out and tried to draw it too. At first I had no idea where it was but I always thought it represented a quintessential little European town. Then when I visited Lucerne for the first time, I was aimlessly wandering when I turned the corner to find it right in front of me. It's one of those incredible feelings - seeing something in person that you originally thought only existed in photos. That's probably why I decided to return to Lucerne again this summer (because to be honest, as pretty as it is there's not a whole lot to do in this city..at least not enough to justify my going twice in a span of 5 years)


There's my hotel - "Balances". Will do a review on it soon.




Vandalizing Kapellbrucke. Anyone heading there soon? Let me know if it's still there!


Zurich!



Of course I had to drop by LV. It's nice and large here!


Another favourite brand - Breguet. Though I'm still waiting on my first..



I love all the boutiques here - huge selections & everyone is so well-dressed.


Strolling beside the lake. I only spent about half a day in Zurich; half of that time I was eating/people-watching in Sprungli.


Next destination: Paris! (via Basel)


Shameless self-promotion + food at the Basel train station


More self-promotion. (If you don't know: I love to scatter mini blog business cards all over the places I travel to)



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This post archived in: Travel

264. Lucerne | Snapshots

Breakfast at my hotel on the second morning in Lucerne, Switzerland. I came here for the first time in 2007 on my previous Eurotrip, and this city was my absolute favourite during that trip. I still remember the feeling I got when I saw Kapellbrücke for the first time. But when I came again a couple months ago, I didn't enjoy it for a few different reasons:

1. Somehow it slipped my mind until 2 days before that I still needed to book a flight or train to Paris, so I got really stressed by that. Don't want to get too much into it but I spent hours searching until I finally got my ticket. I swear during my 2 days in Lucerne I spent the most time at their train station!! (But I won't complain. Swiss boys are cute/good people-watching)

2. I was REALLY REALLY looking forward to staying at the Villa Honegg - I got such a nice room booked too..but unfortunately I had to cancel it as I had no way to get there. It's a bit outside the city so the transportation there would've cost too much time and money (train with all my luggage, taxi, then having to go back to Lucerne to catch my Paris train, etc). Originally I thought my friend (with a car) was going to come with me to Lucerne, but then he wasn't able to..so without a car it was too inconvenient. I really regret not going there now. THIS WOULD'VE BEEN MY ROOM!! ugh. I think it would've been worth it. The hotel people were so nice though - they let me cancel my room, free of charge, even when I called them less than 24hr to do it. I will most definitely stay here next time I come to Lucerne.

3. The first night here I stayed at the Balances Hotel, which was AMAZING. I'm going to do a full review on it in a later post - I loved it a lot. They were fully booked the second night (the night I was supposed to be at Villa Honegg) so I had to do a last minute booking at some other hotel..after extensive searching I chose Hotel Monopol, (pictured above) which was a big mistake. Maybe I'm too picky with hotels but I didn't like this one at all. It was my least favourite out of all my others this trip..didn't really seem like a 4-star =\ The only good thing is the location - directly beside their train station, so at least I was able to catch my train to Paris on time..

4. I came to Europe by myself and went around all the cities by myself (for the most part), and for the first time during the trip I started feeling really lonely when I came to Lucerne. There wasn't much to do here, everything closed early, I was too stressed out, and this was right after I visited Munich (where one of my friends from Germany spent those 3 days with me) so I had to adjust to being by myself again. In all the other cities I loved going around by myself because it was a lot easier to meet locals and there was more to do, but Lucerne was different. Oh & the Monopol Hotel charged a ridiculous fee for the Internet, so I wasn't able to use it..which made me feel even more cut off from the world.

Ahhh this is like the most depressing post so far. I'm going to stop writing about the negative things now because I DO love this city and I love Switzerland. I went to Zurich as well, then Paris for 6 days afterwards and had the BEST time there. Really, the best time of this entire year probably :) hahah. So that made up for anything else I didn't enjoy in the other cities. I think I'm writing too much in this post - is anyone still reading up to this point?! I'll just end with some more random photos..









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