Solothurn for a night, Luzern for an hour

Last night I spent the night in the little historic town of Solothurn in the German speaking part of Switzerland. I was there because the project/competition I'm working on for my internship is located on a site in Solothurn near the river. It was interesting to see how it compared to little historic Italian towns. There is more and darker wood used in buildings, the roofs have larger overhangs and different and darker shingles, some of the baroque forms on the churches are slightly stylized in different ways, the piazzas seemed smaller and of course it was a lot colder. Some similarities were that there were fountains in each piazza, the church was located prominantly and was the tallest, and there was an outdoor market being set up in the morning.
On the way home, Ira, the woman in charge of the firm, reccommended that I stop in Luzern for an hour because I had to switch trains somewhere to get back to Lugano. Luzern had a similar historic feel but was much larger and had what seemed to be more modern areas outside the old town center. There was also a historic covered bridge which had burned down in 1993 and been rebuilt and a starbucks. Yes, a starbucks. There isn't one in Lugano but Luzern was far north enough. I did not stop, however. If I had more than an hour perhaps, but every minute I was walking really fast to see as much as I could. I also stumbled across a quartet, I think it was two violins, a viola and a cello, and they were playing some nice classical tunes in a piazza. That was my longest stop in one place.
Then I boarded the train for Lugano.