Leaving our friends house it is a short drive to Zug. Here we identified a parking garage right downtown, it is a good one to enter but it will be a cursed one to exit. But we don’t know that yet as we make our way to the old city center passing the newly restored former Post Office.
As we make our way into the central area and towards the lake we are attracted by two things, a flea market which is in full swing and the exotic bird cages that are free to visit. We spend quite some time looking at the birds before finally willing ourselves to continue the exploration.
The historic area is relatively small with narrow streets winding through the old city center. A few times we are reaching dead ends but finally we discover the right way to the City Hall our goal.
The city hall is more utilitarian again, it looks more like a fortress than the flamboyant city hall in Basel. However that is compensated by the beautiful facades on the nearby houses, some of them are even painted.
We know start exploring outside the old town proper looking for the city castle. First we pass by the Church of St Oswald, we check if we can enter but no luck.
The houses here are no less impressive than in the downtown area and we spend some time admiring them as we make our way slowly up towards the Zug Castle.
We are not impressed by our first view of the castle however entering the fortifications we start to get an idea of how the castle was protected from possible invaders.
It is much more impressive from the other side even though it looks like someone threw a house on top of tower, really not a classical castle design at all.
We then return to the parking lot by following the walls and passing the Clock Tower. This area is a lot less visited and more quiet, and we enjoy our walk. And then we get to the cursed parking lot. We try to pay the parking and our card gets declined. Our friend tries to pay and seemingly it is accepted, we drive to the entrance and nope the ticket is not validated. Now we have to back up the very curvy exit ramp so we can park somewhere and someone can run back to try to pay. Second time is a charm and we are very happy when we are able to exit and make our way to Zurich.
