Luverly Luzerne and the wonderful Hotel Waldstatter Hof...camp Lucerne

In case you've been reading Faraway Diaries you would have read about our Interlaken and City Oberland woes.

Well, seems like Thor is smiling again. Or is it something to do with the fact that today is Shoshti, the first day of Durga Pujo, the biggest festival of us Bengalis?

Our desire to get out of Interlaken was so acute that K and I got up well in time and reached the station before the train did. So for once there was no DDLJ scampering into the train moment.

We landed at Lucerne, or Luzerne, as the local call it and exclaimed Oh my God in unison, a bit like Janice in FRIENDS.

It seemed like the Europe once again. There was a nip in the air. Church steeples all around. Flowers. Bridges over crystal clear rivers. Paradise regained.

Interlaken was a distant, damned memory.

We entered our hotel, Hotel Waldstatterhof (a tongue twister). This was the first time that we stayed in a hotel that happened to be mentioned in the Lonely Planet. This is just opposite the station. Looks like an Old Gothic building. We entered the cheerful red lobby. Was greeted warmly unlike the reception we got from 'Jungfrown' at the devil's lair, Hotel City Oberland.

We went to our room and K began to do a song and dance number which would do a Yash Chopra heroine proud.

The room was so lovely. If Villa Toscane was aristocratic, Christiana was like a cottage from the Andersen brothers, Oberland the bear's pit ... then this was an uber cool wonder. Very modern. Very chic inside the Vicotorian facade. Wooden flooring. A lovely modern artish green and red screen over the bed, a cheerful red leather arm chair, a very well desigen bathroom with steel and chrome plumbing and a sparkling glass shower cubicle - small and yet with spunk like a young Lolita... electronically operated screens which opened to a vernadah from an era gone by. Electric kettle for the first time in Switzerland.

Kainaz described this as the best hotel room that we have stayed in abroad ... and this was in comparison to contenders such as Amari Orchid Pattaya, Berjaya Langkawi, Marmara Istabul and Musem Hotel Cappadocia, which is saying a lot.

It is almost as if the universe had read my City Oberland woes and decided to reward us.

And the staff are so sweet. The recognise us by face though its just been a few hours and take out our room keys without our having to give the numbers. And the friendly gentleman manning the reception right now said that I can use the net for a while today without having to pay. Which I thought was a very kind gesture.

Such a relief after staying in a horrible hotel where I had to fight a grumpy gnome to change a lousy room.

Our only complaint to our travel agent would be about why are for two days here while we were for three days in Oberland and Interlaken?

Luzerne's great as a city too. We went to a museum next door and saw tons of original paintings by Picasso and photographs of him. Boy, did he sleep through art class or what?

Went out and walked through the old bridge which was burnt in a fire and restored, saw the prison tower, stumbled upon a Mass in the biggest church here with two huge spires. The huge Lion Monument which Mark Twain called the saddest statue in the history of man. And a park where there is a crater from when a glacier rolled down million years back.

In between had a lovely ham pate croissant and some very good coffee by the river in the evening chill. Kainaz finally found a shop with some reasonably priced clothes and the future holds forth a lot of shopping and possibly a river cruise squeezed in and more Starbucks Coffee.

There is a Mac D next there and I can loudly say that when it comes to Lucerne, I am lovin it.