Monday, August 5, 2013

Awesome Alpine Adventure: Day 8 - Natural Science Museum, Lucerne

It was the last day in the Lucerne area and the weather was not great so we decided spend it looking a museums.  This post is about the Natural Science Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Favorite image for the post is really two:
This is the outside of the building and if you look closely you can see ants crawling on it and it seems to get peoples attention.  It sure did make it easy to find the building that and the CO2 sign hanging in front of the entrance.

This I liked because of the butterflies.  They had quite a collection of insects.  In one section you would insert a card and the window would open up and show you a whole collection of them.  This display was just on the wall.  I liked the frame and the wall color to really make the insects stand out.
Favorite Geology image:
Diagram of the area and the rocks from it.


We went to the Swiss Transport Museum and it was such a top-notch museum.  One of the best I've ever seen.  So when we went to the Natural Science museum I was expecting the same high standard.  The museum was good but not outstanding like the Transport museum.  In the end I am glad we did go because I did get to see some things about the area that I wouldn't have otherwise.
    One thing I was curious about the geology in the area and I did find out some of that.
It started out with the solar system and how it was formed.   Then it started to show the 3 different rock types.  Metamorphic, Igneous and Sedimentary.  Under each section they would have samples of the different rocks.  I was surprised they started with Metamorphic.  My pictures of that aren't any good and not worth showing.  Then they did show Igneous.
 After the igneous rocks they surprised me by going into crystals and minerals and not the sedimentary rocks.  The exhibit was okay but not real spectacular.  I though they would have more examples of different crystals.  
 Then they went into the sedimentary rocks.  They had more of them than anything else.  I had a feeling I knew what was being explained but it was all in the one language and it was frustrating to my husband not being able to understand things.
 Then they started to get into the different fossils.  Again I wasn't impressed but then I started to wonder if these were the stuff that's been discovered in this area.  If that's case then it is a good exhibit.  I sure did wish I could read Swiss.  
 Things got a whole lot more interesting when I came upon these displays.  I could tell this was definitely explaining the local geology.  I was appreciative that they did have something like this to help understand how the mountains were formed here.  (In looking at things I got the impression these exhibits were done in the early 1980's) 
 The above image goes here.

This is the next one of the area. 

 Then we went to the next floor up and it was a lot of insects in drawers.  Like this one.  Interesting to see. But after awhile I stopped opening all the windows.
 The next level had animals. Some cute ones at that.  Like this little bunny. 

Here's what their foxes look like. 
And some native critters. 
And thanks to this little critter I finally found out what I was seeing on Piz Nair.
A Marmot at the Nautral Science Museum, Lucerne
I also got to figure out what some of the animals I was seeing along the lake shore with diagrams like this.
and exhibits like this to go along with things.
Here's their wolves.
Did I tell you they liked their insects.  There was a whole other section showing some insects on display.  There were all beetles.
I thought these moths were pretty.
And some more butterflies.

I thought these grasshoppers we very intriguing.  I'm not use to seeing grasshoppers with colored wings.  Most of what I'm used to seeing is all green.  

PS:  I do want to thank the group that took us on this awesome adventure and all the wonderful people we got to know while going on it.  You know who you are - THANK YOU.

Thanks hubby for going to this museum with me.

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