Up the Rhine on a Viking Ship: Lucern, Switzerland Here we are...

Manny and I have made it to Lucern, Switzerland. I have jumped to the end. I need to start at the beginning.

On Tuesday, 1 July, morning, Manny and I went for reflexology for 1 hour. This was great. Around 430pm ET the Lincoln Town car came to bring us to the airport.

Riding in style to the Airport

We are off for our adventure.

On the plane flight from Boston to Iceland, there were movies we could watch. I could not sleep on the first leg of the flight. I watched 2 movies.

Noor and Sameer - I recommend both movies. The first one was "Matchstick Men". It was a great movie. Nicholas Cage starred in this movie about con men. I loved the twist and turns of the movie.

The second movie was "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". I had a tear in my eyes at the end of the movie. This is a remake of the original movie starring Danny Kaye. He was a great actor.

The moral of the story is to live life! Both movies are great, but I love the old movies.

We landed in Keflavik Iceland airport at 530am Iceland time. The plane did not stop at a walkway. No we had to wait for the stairs to be pushed up to the door of the plane. The weather was cold, rainy and windy. The staff on the plane recommended we wear a coat to get to the bus waiting for us. Manny and I made it down the steps carefully.

Cold, rainy and windy in Iceland

I thought I was not going to touch Iceland, but I did because I had to walk across the tarmac. While we were flying towards Iceland, the plane passed by Greenland. Unfortunately, there was too much cloud cover to see it. I was watching the sunrise for the 5 hours of flying to the west. It was beautiful above the clouds. The colors of the sunrise were changing as we got closer to Iceland. The beautiful hues of yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and purples. It was so calming to see it. The overhead lights in the plane mimic the Northern Lights. As we descended below the cloud base there was only grays. I saw the beautiful landscape of Iceland.

We had a little of 2 hours after getting through the Iceland Passport check. I have a stamp from Iceland on my passport. We had breakfast at the airport before going on the next leg of the trip. This was hanging in the airport.

The second flight was a smaller plane. I was so tired and had my headset and eye mask ready for a few hours of sleep. The plane door was closed and we were ready to go, but wait. The pilot comes on telling us there is a mechanical issue that needs to be fix before we can take off. I had started to fall asleep, but I opened my eyes and found the airport door open again. This is not good. I fell asleep and did not realize we were in the air. The flight was quick because I slept. We landed in Zurich, Switzerland and had no problems with luggage and customs. We were taken by Viking River Cruise representative to a Mercedes Benz and driven to Lucern, Switzerland.

The car was cool. When the driver was stopped the car stopped. I thought the car had died, but the driver pressed the gas pedal and off we went. We made it to Luzern, Switzerland.

The Palace Hotel is grand. I will have pictures of our room later this week.

Lake Lucerne is surrounded by the Swiss Alps. I will have pictures posted later.

Manny and I walked to the Old Town to eat. It is beautiful. The old buildings and Flowered bridge. So many of the buildings and homes have flower boxes. The cascade of colors are like a rainbow. The simple beauty of nature. Painting colors that can never be replicated.