Some lakes are set down fair and square on the map, boldly asserting their unquestionable right to be there. Switzerland’s Lac de Neuchâtel is just such a lake. In Italy Lago di Garda is similar. With its strong lines, especially that straight eastern shore where Garda nudges up against Monte Baldo, it’s clear that the Lago di Garda isn’t inclined to compromise. Geneva’s lake, known in western Switzerland as Lac Léman, is a piece of art in its own right, its gentle arc mimicking the curve of the mountains as it acts as a counterpoint to both the Alps and the Jura.
But Lake Lucerne is very different. Its cartographic footprint hints of endless compromise. It’s a lake with twists and turns, vaguely cruciform in shape. It sneaks surreptitiously between great mountains. And therein lies the drama of Lake Lucerne, which is easily the most theatrical of Swiss lakes.
The boat trip from Lucerne to Flüelen takes just under three hours and rates as one of the finest Swiss lake excursions.
With Lac Léman you know exactly where you are, and as you sail the length of the lake from Geneva in the west to the Château de Chillon at the lake’s eastern extremity, the landscape and vistas unfold in a manner which is both predictable and extremely beautiful. Shift to Lucerne and it’s as if an imaginative stage designer has created a series of bold settings which are revealed as surprises to the traveller venturing from the city of Lucerne down to the southern end of the lake.
The sheer beauty of Lake Lucerne is its variety, almost as if it’s not one lake but a whole series of interconnected lakes. There is the inlet which gives such grace and style to the city of Lucerne itself and, interestingly, this is the only portion of the lake to be referred to in German as the Luzernersee — the German name for the wider body of water is Vierwaldstättersee, meaning ‘the lake of the four forest cantons’. Then there’s an arm of the lake that nudges up against the north side of the Rigi and a semi-detached portion of the lake that hides behind the rocky buttresses of the Lopper, reached only by a narrow waterway between the Lopper (on the west) and the Bürgenstock (on the east). Finally, there is the extraordinarily beautiful southern limb of the lake (called the Urnersee in German) which comes as quite a surprise to those unfamiliar with the local geography. Sailing east towards Brunnen, it really looks as though the steep slopes ahead mark the end of Lake Lucerne, but then a wonderful vista opens up to starboard, revealing another huge expanse of water.
The boat trip from Lucerne to Flüelen takes just under three hours and rates as one of the finest Swiss lake excursions. These days it is a journey which travellers make entirely for pleasure. But cast back to before the era of modern roads and railways, and the boat journey down the length of Lake Lucerne was usually the precursor to the crossing of the Gotthard Pass to reach Lombardy. There was a time when this was a perilous journey, and the early chronicler Adam of Usk, who took this route on his journey from Wales to Rome in the early 15th century, was so terrified that he travelled blindfolded over the Gotthard in an ox cart.
In the early 1870s diligences took about 15 hours for the arduous journey over the Gotthard Pass road from Flüelen to Bellinzona. Today you can hop on a train in Flüelen, dash in darkness through the Gotthard Base Tunnel, and alight in Bellizona 37 minutes later. Or, for those who prefer Alpine views on their train journeys, Flüelen to Bellinzona takes a couple of hours via the classic Gotthard Railway.
View from above Bauen, looking south-east over the uppermost part of Lake Lucerne. This southern part of the lake is also known as the Urnersee (photo © Ron Sumners / dreamstime.com).
Shaping Swiss identity
So Lucerne has morphed from being one of the great thoroughfares of Europe, a prelude to the Gotthard adventure, into a leisurely lake diversion for those with a morning to spare. It has been invested with meaning by generations of travellers, some of them influenced by Baedeker’s advice that the lake “is unsurpassed in Switzerland, and perhaps in Europe, in magnificence of scenery. Its beautiful banks are also intimately connected with many historical associations, which are graphically depicted by Schiller in his Wilhelm Tell.”
Schiller is often invoked in discussions of Lake Lucerne. As the boat to Flüelen rounds the sharp headland opposite Brunnen to access the Urnersee there is a rocky plinth by the shore with an inscription paying homage to Schiller as the Bard of Tell. The German writer’s 1804 play Wilhelm Tell relies heavily on landscape imagery to underpin the drama of a story which celebrates the origins of the Swiss Confederation. Indeed, just past the Schiller memorial the lake steamer pulls in at Rütli, where representatives of Switzerland’s founding cantons allegedly met to swear the oath of allegiance. So here we have a dramatic national narrative, one that so fundamentally underpins Swiss identity, being staged in an extraordinary landscape.
The real surprise is that when Schiller wrote Wilhelm Tell, he had never actually visited Switzerland. Rossini’s wonderful 1829 opera on the Tell story gave Lake Lucerne its own soundtrack, but here too it’s interesting that Rossini had never set eyes on the lake when he composed the music that is so profoundly linked to the Lucerne landscapes.
It’s the inexorable drama of light and shadows, the extraordinary play of clouds on the mountains, the mix of forests and glaciers and, above all, the way in which the lake tempts and taunts, only slowly revealing what it has to offer, that makes Lucerne the most theatrical of Swiss lakes.
While some may cast their vote for Léman and others will argue the case for Lugano, we’ll take our cue from Baedeker and look to Lucerne for its sheer drama and variety.
