Cities.
If you look at the map of the country, Lucerne, located on the shores of Lake Firvaldstät, exactly in its center. For several centuries it was considered the unrecognized capital of Switzerland...
There is a legend about the origin of this city. One day, residents of a village on the shore of a lake saw an angel in the dark sky with a lantern in his hands. The people followed the road illuminated by the angel. In the place where he stopped, a monastery was built... and then a city grew around it, called the “city of light.”
The founding date of the city is considered to be 1178. After the opening of the Gotthard route in the 13th century, Lucerne quickly became one of the major fair centers. In 1291 it became a possession of the Habsburgs, and in 1322 it carefully joined the union of the first cantons. Until 1799, Lucerne was the seat of the Swiss government.
The first travelers to discover the beauty of this city were the British. ABOUT Queen Victoria loved to relax in Lucerne. Here Richard Wagner in 1866-1872. at his villa Tribschen (Richard Wagner Weg, 27 in the southern part of the city) he finished Siegfried and Die Mastersingers de Nuremberg. “We were here...”: Charlie Chaplin, Sergei Prokofiev, Marc Chagall, Picasso, Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev, Rachmaninov...
Now Lucerne is in the top ten tourist places in the world that are visited by all self-respecting secular public. And we are with them! ;-)
The city is truly wonderful! Narrow streets of the old city, small squares, elegant fountains and houses decorated with frescoes... the city seems like a fairy tale.
The symbol of Lucerne is wooden Chapel Bridge(Kappelbrucke), spanning the Reuss River... the bridge is extraordinary, firstly, because built not across, but along the river. And secondly, This is the oldest bridge with a wooden roof in Europe, its ceiling is decorated with fragments from the history of the city. It was built at the beginning of the 14th century as part of the city fortifications. True, in 1993 the bridge was badly damaged by a fire, in which the ancient paintings that adorned the roof rafters were destroyed; it was restored and restored to its original appearance.
The octagonal water tower, 34 m high, built around 1300, is also part of the city's fortifications. At one time it was intended for an archive, storage of the treasury, and was used both as a prison and as a room for interrogation and torture.
Nearby there is a two-tower Jesuit Church, erected between 1666 and 1669, it is considered the oldest Baroque building in Switzerland. The spacious, richly decorated interior of the church is especially impressive. We walked in and instantly took our breath away from such beauty! We sat and looked at the altar and the paintings, listened to the organ...
Next to this church is located Knight's Palace. Initially, this Renaissance building belonged to the Jesuit order, and since 1804 it became the seat of the city administration.
Next is the second covered bridge of Lucerne - Chaff Bridge(Spreuerbrucke), painted with Dances of Death. At this place, chaff and other refuse were once dumped into the river. From this bridge there is a wonderful view of the old city, as well as the nine-tower ancient wall of the Museggmauer, 870 m long, built around 1400 for the defense of the city.
In another part of the city, the Gothic spiers of the church towers immediately attract attention Hofkirche, going up into the sky so high that it seems like they are like two needles piercing it right through.
At the foot of the church hill is Rothenburgerhaus- the oldest residential wooden building in Switzerland (circa 1500).
A few steps from Levenplatz square there is carved into the rock “the saddest monument in the world,” as Mark Twain once called it... "The Dying Lion" works by the Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen (1821). It recalls the heroic death of the Swiss guards who defended Louis XVI during the storming of the Tuileries Palace in 1792. The lion lies, crushing his shield and the broken spear that pierced him through, and seems to be sleeping in an eternal sleep... Indeed, a sad monument! But everyone should certainly “click” against its background. This is another calling card of the city.
Not far from this monument there is a glacier park-museum "Glacier Garden" . For those interested, there are fossils recovered from glaciers and glaciers, as well as drill holes 9 meters deep. In addition, finds from the prehistoric era are presented here.
Nearby, don't miss the Alhambra Mirror Maze. This attraction (90 mirrors) was created in 1896 for the Swiss National Exhibition in Geneva, and was then transferred to the Glacier Garden in 1899. You can get there on foot from the train station (15 minutes) or by bus number 1, 19, 22, 23 to Löwenplatz. The entrance to the garden-museum is located a few steps from the “Dying Lion” monument. So we liked Lucerne - we didn’t even want to leave, we wish we could stay like this for a week or two...
The picturesque Kapellbrucke is a unique covered bridge built in Lucerne in 1333. The Kapellbrücke is considered the oldest operating wooden bridge in Europe. It was built as a defensive corridor as part of the city's fortifications; Now it is one of the most important attractions and symbol of Lucerne. Crossing the Reuss River, the medieval bridge connects the Old Town with the “new” quarters, passing through the octagonal Wasserturm tower lying in the middle of the river. The length of the Kapellbrücke is 204 meters.
The bridge was quite badly damaged by a fire that occurred in 1993; almost stronger than in the six centuries that have passed since its construction. After reconstruction and renovation work, Kapellbrücke was reopened in April 1994.
Chapel Bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland // Maria Puzankova, website
While walking along Kapellbrücke, it is worth looking up often: along the bridge, under the ridge of the roof, you can see triangular paintings depicting the most important moments in the history of Switzerland and Lucerne. True, after a fire on the bridge in 1993, 78 medieval paintings were destroyed: of the 111 images, less than a third survived.
In the Wasserturm tower - which was a lighthouse, a prison, and a treasury - there is now a souvenir shop where you can buy interesting magnets with views of Lucerne and other memorabilia.
How to get there
The train service connects Lucerne with, and; Travel time between cities takes no more than an hour and a half.
Regular passenger lines connect Lucerne with other coastal cities along the shores of Lake Lucerne. Both modern motor ships and paddle steamers built in the first half of the 20th century ply the lake. You can check the ferry schedule on the website
The Kapellbrücke Bridge is the pearl of Lucerne and a favorite place for tourists and city residents. It connects the Old Town and the New Town, located on opposite banks of the Reuss River. It is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe and is approximately 205 meters long.
Kapellbrücke was built in 1365 for the purpose of defensive city fortification. It is entirely made of wood, including a gable roof along its entire length. Initially, the structure was longer and connected the chapel of St. Peter and the Church of St. Leodegar, but in 1835 part of the bridge was demolished due to coastal filling.
The uniqueness of Kapellbrücke lies in the fact that on its pediments there are about a hundred triangular paintings depicting important historical scenes of the country. The main element of the ancient bridge is the octagonal brick tower Wasserturm, whose height is about 35 meters. It was built in 1300 as part of the city’s fortifications, but during its existence it was used as a guardhouse, a dungeon, a torture chamber, and an archive.
Kapellbrücke has not completely preserved its original appearance, since its middle part was destroyed by fire in 1993. The fire destroyed about 80 unique paintings, which were replaced during the restoration process with works of similar themes from the nineteenth century. In 1994, the bridge was restored and again opened to the public. Now it is decorated with 122 paintings telling about the history of the country and the lives of the revered Swiss saints - Leodegar and Mauricius. In Wasserturm there is a souvenir shop and an artillery union.
In the immediate vicinity of Kapellbrücke there is the famous symbol of Lucerne - the Church of St. Leodegar with two square towers. On the southern bank of the Reuss River is the oldest Swiss building in the Baroque style - the Jesuit Church with a luxurious interior. Next to the church you can see the Knight's Palace in the Italian Renaissance style.
Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) - PHOTO
November 17th, 2014 , 10:10 am
An art gallery in the middle of a river? A history book in the rafters of a bridge? Skeletons dancing in the background
alpine landscapes? - All these, of course, are the ancient wooden bridges of Lucerne. 
Engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder. Lucerne in 1642.
Medieval Lucerne, with its three-kilometer-long fortress wall, thirty towers and three covered bridges that protected the city from Lake Firwaldstät, was called “the little wooden stork’s nest” - “das kleine hölzerne Storchennest”. As the city, advantageously located at the intersection of trade routes from Germany to Italy, grew, fewer and fewer ancient fortifications remained. A section of the wall 870 m long, 9 towers and 2 bridges have survived to this day. One of the wooden bridges, the Hofbrücke, 385 meters long, was dismantled in the mid-19th century to improve the embankment. We remembered this bridge while walking along.
Kapellbrücke Bridge
Two other bridges over the Reuss River - the Kapellbrücke and the Sproerbrücke - have survived and are today Lucerne's most famous landmarks. Particularly famous is the Kapellbrücke - the Chapel Bridge, which, according to statistics, is most often photographed by tourists in Switzerland. This bridge has become as symbolic of the country as the Alpine peak Matterhorn.
Kapellbrücke Bridge
The name of the bridge was given by the chapel (chapel) of St. Peter standing next to it on the shore. The covered wooden bridge under a gable tiled roof was built in 1333 and is considered the oldest structure of its kind in Europe. The Swiss call it the longest wooden bridge - together with the canopies, the length of the Kapellbrücke is 204.7 meters, but in German sources, primacy is given to the wooden bridge in the city of Bad Säckingen, connecting Germany and Switzerland across the Rhine: its length, including the canopies, is almost two meters longer - 206 , 5 meters. The bridge was originally much longer: in 1835 it was shortened by 75 meters due to changes in the river's shoreline.
View of the Jesuit Church (1669) from the Kapellbrücke bridge
Wasserturm tower with Mount Pilatus in the background
The shape of the bridge is unusual: it crosses the Reuss not in a straight line, but in a broken line, capturing the octagonal stone Wasserturm - “Water Tower”, standing in the middle of the river, built even before the bridge, in 1300. The 43-meter-high tower was originally not a water tower, as you might think, but a watchtower. At one time it housed a prison and a torture chamber, then a city archive and a treasury storage facility.
But it is not the tower, not the antiquity and not the length that makes the Kapellbrücke bridge truly unique, but the double-sided triangular paintings on wood created in the 17th century, fixed under the roof slope. The author of the cycle was the artist Hans Heinrich Wegmann, who moved to Lucerne from Zurich, who, together with his four sons, began working on sketches for paintings for the Kapellbrücke in 1606.
Initially there were 158 paintings; after the bridge was shortened, 111 remained (the removed paintings, of course, were preserved). Wooden panels 150-181 cm wide and 85-95 cm high consist of three to five boards, most of them are pine, only a few panels are made of linden and maple.
Paintings on the Kapellbrücke Bridge
The bridge was so richly decorated not only out of love for beauty. The paintings appeared on the bridge during the Counter-Reformation, when Lucerne affirmed its allegiance to the Catholic Church. The painted panels on the bridge thus played an educational and propaganda role. The plots are based on instructive episodes from the history of Switzerland with an emphasis on the Counter-Reformation and the lives of the patrons of Lucerne, St. Leodegar and St. Mauritius. Walking across the bridge, the pedestrian involuntarily became familiar with Catholicism and was imbued with a patriotic spirit. Since most of the plots are related to wars and martyrdom, the cycle produces a rather gloomy impression. There is violence in almost all scenes. We see executions, battles, dead bodies, weapons; the red color of banners and blood dominates the paintings.
Paintings on the Kapellbrücke Bridge
To prevent pedestrian viewers from making mistakes in defining and interpreting the plots, each picture is accompanied by several lines of poetry that explain and complement the image and protect the pictures from misunderstanding. Each painting is provided with a serial number and decorated along the edges with the coats of arms of the sponsors - representatives of the city nobility.
Paintings on the Kapellbrücke Bridge
Walking across the bridge, we notice empty panels in place of some paintings. Alas! On the night of August 18, 1993, a tragedy occurred - the Kapellbrücke caught fire, presumably from an unextinguished cigarette. The fire destroyed most of the bridge (which one can now be identified by its lighter wood), including 78 of the 111 paintings. Some of the paintings were restored, the hopelessly lost paintings were replaced with those originals that were removed from the bridge during its shortening in the 19th century, but the damage from the fire could not be completely compensated. The bridge was restored very quickly: already in April 1994 it was reopened to pedestrians, and the restored paintings took their place in 1998. Restoration of the bridge cost more than 2 million US dollars. There are still heated debates about whether it is worth filling the places of burnt paintings with copies.
Town Hall Bridge and Town Hall on the banks of the Reuss River
Kapellbrücke and Jesuit Church
Pedestrian bridges and dams
Magnificent interior of the Jesuit Church
The rushing waters of the Royce River
Embankment with Clock Tower
Corner of the embankment
The wooden bridge Sproerbrücke is located a short walk from Kapellbrücke, just up the river. In the 13th century, the bridge reached only to the middle of the river - it connected the Mill Square on the right bank of the Royce with the water mills standing in the middle of the river. In 1408, the bridge was extended to the left bank and connected the mills with the bakers' quarter. Only from this bridge was it possible to throw mill waste into the water. Hence its name - Spreuerbrücke, Chaff. In 1556, the bridge was destroyed by a flood, but was soon rebuilt, and in 1568 a miniature chapel was added to it.
Sproerbrücke Bridge
Chapel of the Virgin Mary on the Sproerbrücke Bridge
The intimate and romantic Sproerbrücke is less famous than its neighbor Kapellbrücke, but no less charming. The red scaly turret of the chapel gives the bridge a touching appearance. It seems that you are in a good fairy tale... until you step onto the bridge. The cute bridge is decorated with 67 triangular paintings painted in 1626-1635 by Caspar Meglinger. Like scenes from a horror film, the “Dance of Death” - “Totentanz” unfolds before the viewer. Death in the form of a dancing skeleton, or even several, accompanies a person everywhere, every day and in his every act, people of all classes and ages are equal before it. She stands behind everyone’s back and waits in the wings, and there is no place where you can hide from her.
Chapel on the Sproerbrücke Bridge
Entrance to the Sproerbrücke bridge
Allegorical series on this plot originate in the Latin tradition and go through the entire Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Lucerne Dance of Death is closest to the series of engravings by Hans Holbein the Younger, completed in 1526. It was Holbein who first depicted the Dance of Death not as a string of dancing figures or couples, but as a series of separate scenes independent of each other, thereby emphasizing that death appears suddenly, among everyday worries and pleasures. Just like on the Kapellbrücke Bridge, the panels have a serial number, they are accompanied by explanatory inscriptions and images of the coats of arms of the sponsors.
The educational significance of the bridge is difficult to overestimate: wanting to quickly cross to the opposite bank, a pedestrian, willy-nilly, walks across the bridge under terrible pictures, forcing him day after day to think about the frailty of our sinful life. But it’s not difficult to improve your mood and realize that life is beautiful - you just need to look back and look at the turquoise waters of the lake, the Alpine peaks and Lucerne with its towers, bridges, and temples.
Dance of Death on the Sproerbrücke Bridge
Continuation of the topic:
"Dance of Death" in European fine arts,
literature and music