Lucerne is one of those towns that seems to have stepped straight out of a picture book. On the shores of Lake Lucerne, painted façades and steeply pitched roofs crowd behind a long 14th-century wooden bridge. Swans glide across turquoise waters, while a lion carved into the cliff has wept in silence since 1821. Just forty-five minutes from Zurich, the fairy tale remains wonderfully intact.
Some towns are visited; Lucerne is leafed through like an illustrated storybook. The Reuss, a river flowing out of the lake, divides the town in two beneath the Kapellbrücke, the covered wooden bridge built in the 14th century with its octagonal tower rising from the current. From the jagged ramparts above, the Swiss town reveals a patchwork of slate roofs, painted gables and spires, packed together like the pages of a medieval herbarium. It takes a moment to believe any of it is truly real.
Love at first bridge
Can one fall in love with a town simply by crossing a bridge? In Lucerne, the question quickly ceases to be rhetorical. The Kapellbrücke has stretched its dark timbers across the Reuss since 1333, with just the right balance of flowers, shade and angles to create one of the country’s most iconic views all by itself.
Its octagonal tower guards the crossing, while the painted panels beneath the roof beams recount saints, battles and local pride. People stroll across slowly — less out of caution than from a desire to delay the end of such an enchanting passage.
Spires and sugar candy
One almost expects a dragon to emerge from the nine crenellated towers of the Musegg Wall, yet Lucerne’s churches transport the imagination even further into the realm of fairy tales.
The Church of St Leodegar thrusts its impossibly sharp Gothic spires above the lake, while the Jesuit Church favours curves, domes and pastel shades. Inside, its cream-and-pink interior, rich with stucco and delicate gilding, drifts into the gentlest form of Baroque splendour. One shapes the skyline; the other softens the dream.
Illuminated pages beneath the open sky
The narrow streets of the Altstadt, Lucerne’s medieval old town, read like illuminated manuscripts. One enters from the Reuss into a pedestrian maze of painted façades rising from pavement to gable.
A pistachio-coloured fresco of the Wedding at Cana covers an entire wall on Weinmarkt, the former wine market square — the miracle of water turned into wine: Lucerne’s inhabitants clearly appreciate a playful wink. Nearby, deep-blue guild coats of arms brighten the next façade. Window shutters are matched to doors out of sheer elegance, and even the rain seems unable to dull the colours. At the centre stands an untroubled 15th-century fountain.
At the water’s edge
The magnificent Lake Lucerne embraces the town with an unfailing sense of the picturesque. White paddle steamers drift slowly away from the quays towards Weggis or Vitznau, winding among swans gliding through the bluish reflections of the mountains.
The lakeside promenades lead past villas and Belle Époque hotels, their pale façades lined with balconies. Lucerne relaxes here, momentarily shedding its role as a medieval backdrop to become something quieter: a resort town with a restrained and timeless charm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMvZSGrfF6s
A lion in the rock face
Lucerne’s famous Lion Monument lies slightly apart from the centre, hidden within a sunken garden. Carved into a sandstone cliff in the early 19th century from a design by Bertel Thorvaldsen and completed in 1821, the sculpture of a dying lion pierced by a spear commemorates the Swiss Guards killed during the storming of the Tuileries Palace in 1792. Its reflection trembles in the pool below, just enough to suggest that the stone is still breathing.
Mark Twain called it 'the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world', and it is hard to accuse him of exaggeration. The darker side of the fairy tale, perhaps?
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