We’re spending five days in Lucerne with a toddler and we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing please help.
Hello new Swiss friends!
As you may have gleaned from the title, this October my wife (31f) and I (35m) are packing up our three year old daughter (and my father-in-law (55m)) and heading to Switzerland. We are going to be spending five days and nights in Lucerne and I need your help - because neither of us has any clue what we’re doing or how we’re going to get along in a very old and beautiful city with a toddler who is prone to, very dramatically, announcing she is too tired to walk.
You might be asking yourself, why are these idiots visiting Lucerne with no plan? The answer to that one is simple: We both love to travel. We haven’t traveled in five years thanks to COVID followed by our decision to reproduce shortly thereafter. One day, when I was particularly worried about the fate of the world, I decided to incinerate some of our savings to take a Remember-this-Forever kind of trip to Europe. (We’ve both been England and Ireland before but that was a long, long time ago).
What initially was planned as a trip through Germany somehow mutated when we decided to try and add Lucerne to the itinerary as a 24hr stop on our way out of Europe. At first we were like “hey nice lake and how fun would it be to hit two countries?” But then we spoke to some friends who spent a long time in Switzerland and they told us that Lucerne was their favorite place on their entire trip. And then we realized we didn’t want to force a three year old to hop a train every day and we did some quick Googling and were like “hey there is a lot of stuff within a 1hr train ride of Lucerne if you like gentle-to-moderate hikes and long pensive walks through nature” and we LOVE long pensive walks through nature and we are working on improving our cardio enough to love moderate hiking so we figured you know what, let’s just dive in to this beautiful medieval Alpiney-ness.
And then my wife’s father offered to pay for our hotels and dinners if we brought him with us so we are bringing him with us. But you don’t need to worry about him. He is charming, single and more than capable of making his own fun - and I can’t party like that anymore - so we will not be factoring him heavily into our plans outside of mealtimes.
Which brings us to the crux of our issue - we have booked our (nonrefundable) room at the hotel. In October we will arrive in Munich. A few days later, one of us will be brave enough to figure out how to get us to Lucerne by train. And then what?
The transport museum looks rad (how do we get there without a car?), and a lake cruise seems like a must - but what about communing with nature?
Do you have any advice, in general, on how to travel through Switzerland with a toddler?
Are there any decent hikes or other outdoor activities that we could do with the kiddo? Our three year old is not nearly as wimpy and exhausted as she pretends to be - but she pretends to be exhausted often in dramatic fashion and requires transport. But she also handled the whole upward trip of a 1 mile hike with 400ft of elevation on her own here at home over some very rocky terrain so who knows.
She also loves trains. I am aware of several opportunities in the area to board a train and ride it up a mountain. But I am unsure which mountain-escalation train ride is the most enjoyable or how to get to it.
What about day trips? TripAdvisor recommends going to Interlaken. But what do YOU recommend?
Where should we eat? What should we eat?
I’d love to get some advice on how we can make this trip to Lucerne as memorable as possible! We are morons, but we are enthusiastic morons and despite being hopelessly American we are SO excited to visit you guys. And also excited to change your opinion on Americans when you meet us and you’re like hey, I like their tattoos and their kid is really polite and maybe the USA isn’t so bad (it is, but we’re great).
Thanks in advance!
Your future best friend,
Please note: it is now 11p here and I am weary and the child will wake us soon. But I will definitely be responding to comments when I wake up. Luv u.