Lucerne (also known as Luzern) is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful cities in Switzerland. The elegant old town, the vast lake right next to it and the panorama of snow-capped peaks all around create a backdrop that is hard to beat. Behind this photogenic façade however, lies a surprisingly alternative destination. In Lucerne you can, for example, spend the night in a former prison, sail out onto the lake in your own sauna boat and even visit shipwrecks in a submarine. In this article, you’ll discover why Lucerne is much more than a classic city trip and which unique experiences you shouldn’t miss.
Few people would ever call Switzerland ugly. In terms of pure natural beauty, it’s one of Europe’s prettiest destinations. Magnificent mountains, fresh alpine meadows full of bell-clattering cows, endless mirror-like lakes and picturesque red trains tirelessly chugging through all of it – often over some gravity-defying viaduct. Eye candy is important, and Switzerland has plenty of it. The average Swiss city tends to impress me a little less. There is of course, always something interesting to discover (Locarno in Italian-speaking Ticino for example, looks and feels extremely cosy), but many ski resorts and even some of the larger cities are not exactly architectural marvels. Switzerland is where you come for nature, skiing and the fresh mountain air. At least that’s what I thought until recently.
That idea went straight into the bin as soon as I got off the train in Lucerne (just an hour from Zurich). This is a city of fewer than a hundred thousand inhabitants, but visually and historically it feels much bigger. The beautiful setting obviously contributes to that feeling. The iconic Mount Pilatus is the city’s main landmark: Lucerne’s patron mountain, which can be seen from just about anywhere. The largely pedestrianised old town lies along the Reuss River and is a maze of cobbled streets and staircases, lined with frescoed guildhalls. Cross the extremely photogenic Chapel Bridge and you’ll end up in the Kleinstadt district. This is a somewhat newer but almost equally atmospheric district, bursting with local shops and restaurants. For wanderers, window shoppers and anyone who enjoys slow travel, Lucerne has plenty to explore.
What to do in Lucerne: discover the city’s alternative side
Yet Lucerne is more than just a pleasant city for walking and shopping. Outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers won’t get bored either. From the city centre, a wonderful promenade runs along the lake for kilometres. Along it you’ll find sunbathing areas and beach pools, and the lake can be explored by boat or kayak. The surrounding mountains offer hundreds of kilometres of hiking trails – you can even hire an alpaca companion while you’re at it.
Lucerne isn’t really a ski destination, but in 90 minutes you can get from the station to the 3,000-metre-high top of Mount Titlis – where you’ll find one of the most snow-sure ski areas in central Switzerland. In Lucerne, you decide how exciting your trip will be. Traditional city trip with mulled wine on a terrace? Completely fine. Not interested in that and want to book a bunch of unusual activities instead? Works just as well. In this article, I’ll try to combine both aspects in a balanced way, starting with the city’s most iconic landmark.
1. The Chapel Bridge and the Water Tower: Lucerne’s most iconic sights
The most iconic image of Lucerne is without a doubt that of the wooden Chapel Bridge spanning the Reuss, with Mount Pilatus as the backdrop. It’s one of the most photographed scenes in Switzerland and makes for a wonderful picture. This unique covered bridge was built in the 14th century, is more than 200 metres long, and was once part of the city’s fortifications. A few centuries later, more than 150 painted panels were added beneath the roof, depicting the history of Switzerland and the lives of the local saints.
All of this creates a peaceful scene and gives Lucerne a touch of medieval flair – especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays when a market is set up along the riverbank. Yet a significant part of the bridge doesn’t date from the Middle Ages, but from 1994. This may be a tad disappointing, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. More than half of the bridge burned down the year before, causing enormous citywide trauma. The Water Tower (Wasserturm) right next to it is still original and completes the scene. Thirty years older than the bridge, it’s now a tourist attraction – but it once served as a prison and even a torture chamber.
2. The Spreuerbrücke: one of the most unusual sights in Lucerne
A few hundred meters behind the Chapel Bridge, the Spreuerbrücke (“Mill Bridge”) is an almost identical but much less visited bridge. At first glance, you can hardly see any difference – until you take a closer look at the panels beneath the roof. No Swiss history on these ones. Instead, the panels depict a series of eerie scenes, where skeletons and Grim Reapers drag unsuspecting medieval townspeople to their deaths.
These so-called “Totentanz” paintings were meant to remind passers-by that every step brings you closer to death. Rich or poor, powerful or meek, handsome or offensively ugly: in a few years, we’ll all be six feet under. Got the message and want to set things right before it’s too late? You’ll find the Jesuitenkirche across the water: a gorgeous Baroque church where you can politely ask for forgiveness. Now how did those prayers go again?
3. Sleeping in a prison in Lucerne: Hotel Barabas
If you want to spend a night in prison, you’ll usually have to rob a bank first. Lucerne makes it a bit easier on you. Here, you can simply book a room in a former jailhouse. And unless you refuse to pay your bill, they’ll even let you out again the next morning.
Hotel Barabas – my home away from home for the whole trip – is located smack in the middle of the old town and is probably the most unique hotel in the canton. The building dates back to 1862 and served as Lucerne’s central prison for more than a century. In the late 1990s, the building became vacant and was eventually converted into a hotel.
The best thing about this transformation is that very little was actually changed. The corridors still look exactly as you’d expect them to in a cellblock. The room doors are reinforced and have a viewing hatch (don’t worry: there’s another door in between, no one will be able to peek at your bum). The rooms obviously have all the necessary basic facilities, but still feel like the prison cells they originally were – including steel bars on the windows.
The hotel was named after an artist who was imprisoned here for a few months because he was a conscientious objector. He painted everything he missed onto the prison walls, namely naked women, booze and good food. His art can still be admired in the common room on the first floor. I had a pleasant stay in Hotel Barabas, which is (which is (not too surprisingly) one of the cheaper places in Lucerne. They also offer rooms for groups of up to six people.
4. The Musegg Wall: walk along Lucerne’s historic city wall
Just behind Hotel Barabas is one of Lucerne’s most famous architectural landmarks. The Musegg Wall is the old city fortification and dates back to the 13th century. At almost 900 metres in length, it’s the longest surviving city wall in Switzerland. Originally, there were thirty towers arranged in two rings, but today only nine are left. Four of them can be visited and climbed for free from April to November. Just a bit too early for me (I was there near the end of March), but fortunately there’s a pleasant trail to explore next to the towers as well, offering occasional views over the city. Behind the wall is a path leading to the other side of the old town, past sports fields and meadows with Scottish Highland cattle. Perfect outing for those who want to stretch their legs without leaving the city.
5. The Lion of Lucerne: the city’s most famous monument
A short walk from the Musegg Wall – chiselled directly into an old sandstone quarry – is one of Lucerne’s most unique works of art. The Lion of Lucerne was created to honour the 750 members of the Swiss Guard who were killed during the French Revolution. Before they started working full-time as bellboys for the Pope, they were (apart from The A-Team, of course) just about the best mercenaries a man could get. Sadly for them, the man in question happened to be the French king just before he lost his head to the guillotine. Wrong place, wrong time.
The resulting sculpture is an incredibly dramatic lion clutching a shield of the French monarchy with a broken spear in its side. The poor animal looks so distraught and defeated that even Mark Twain wrote about it. “The saddest and most moving piece of stone in the world,” he called it. Beyond the drama, it’s a large and impressive monument in a peaceful part of the city.
Once you’re done comforting the lion, step into the nearby Bourbaki Panorama. This is a massive indoor painting on a circular 360-degree wall (similar to the one in Waterloo). It depicts the flight of 87,000 French troops, who sought asylum in neutral Switzerland after being defeated during the Franco-Prussian War (1871). This was one of the first major humanitarian projects of the Red Cross, founded in Switzerland just a few years earlier (yes, the cross in the logo was inspired by the Swiss flag).
6. The Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne: Switzerland’s most popular museum
At first glance, it might seem surprising that the Swiss Museum of Transport is the most popular museum in Switzerland. But once you visit, it quickly makes perfect sense.
The museum is a vast complex made up of multiple halls about two kilometres outside the city centre. You can walk straight to it along the beautiful lakeside promenade. It features everything from locomotives and ships to decommissioned SWISS passenger jets. There’s also a fantastic collection of vintage cars and supercars, which can be retrieved from a giant Matchbox-style display using an automated forklift system. Even Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 car is on display here.
Also on display are the oldest tourist submarine in the world, a range of antique cable lifts, an extensive space exploration exhibit (including a large rotating cabin that will make you question gravity), and the largest planetarium in the country. Incredibly interesting place where you can easily spend a whole day – especially with young kids who love cars and trains.
7. Gameorama Luzern: a unique and interactive museum about gaming
The Swiss Museum of Transport is fantastic, but my favourite museum in Lucerne is a bit more low-key. A few minutes’ walk from the Chapel Bridge is Gameorama. It may not look particularly spectacular from the outside, but inside you’ll discover one of the most extensive collections of classic game consoles, PCs and games anywhere. What makes it even more fun – and what makes it much more than just a museum – is that you can actually play on all of these systems.
They have everything from the very first Pong game to some of the oldest Apple computers, ancient Ataris and all the classic Nintendo consoles. PlayStation is of course also present and you can try a number of PC classics from my own youth: Doom II, Quake III Arena and Age of Empires II for example – I almost started weeping from pure nostalgia. You can even try those small rectangular handheld devices with a single built-in game that Nintendo used to produce before the Game Boy era.
Add to that a selection of classic arcade cabinets, a dozen beautifully restored pinball machines (the Addams Family one is a technical work of art) and a corner dedicated to board games, and you get one of the most unique and interactive museums I’ve ever visited. Fourteen-year-old Fortnite addicts of the world: come take a look here, and realise “multiplayer” used to mean you’d sometimes get a controller thrown in your face because you humiliated your younger brother one too many times in FIFA or Tekken. I’m still the king, baby.
8. Enjoy a sauna boat on Lake Lucerne
There’s plenty to do outside Lucerne as well, largely thanks to the vast lake right next to the city. Some truly unique experiences can be booked here. At Seehotel Kastanienbaum, for example, you can rent your own sauna boat – didn’t have to tell me twice.
It’s a compact, almost square electric boat equipped with a surprisingly spacious sauna and a small sundeck on top. You can steer it yourself across the lake, stop in an idyllic spot of your choice and simply relax in the sun with a drink in hand. After each sauna session, you can dive straight into the ice-cold lake to cool off – wonderful. For an equally fun alternative, head to Interlaken, where you’ll find floating hot tubs.
9. The Subspirit: dive to the bottom of Lake Lucerne in a submarine
The fun on Lake Lucerne doesn’t stop at the surface – you can go all the way to the bottom if you want. Enter the Subspirit: the only commercial submarine operating on the Swiss lakes. Measuring 5.5 metres in length and weighing 6.5 tonnes, it was originally built for research purposes but was converted a few years ago so it could be used for commercial dives as well.
Up to four passengers can come aboard, and to keep everything completely safe (remember the imploding Titan: could never happen here), a significant amount of maintenance, technology and manpower is required. This makes it an activity usually reserved for those with a very generous budget, but since they could use the pictures, I was lucky enough to join a dive myself.
It turned out to be incredible. It’s astonishing how quickly everything turns dark underwater: from around twenty metres down, the light begins to fade, bringing you into the so-called twilight zone.
When we reached the lakebed at a depth of 85 metres, it was pitch black – until the external spotlights switched on. They illuminated the wreck of the Vitzanove: a passenger ship that sank during a storm in the late nineties. The two people on board managed to escape in time, so there’s no need to feel guilty about taking a look. It’s still quite eerie, though. The ship is remarkably well preserved, and the door to the wheelhouse stands open. A fantastic experience: I felt like James Cameron diving down to the Titanic.
10. Mount Pilatus: the most popular day trip from Lucerne
Lucerne’s second major natural attraction is of course Mount Pilatus: one of the most popular day trips from the city. There are two ways to reach the top of Pilatus. From Kriens (I took the bus directly from Lucerne Station), you can hop on a series of panoramic gondolas (tickets here) that carry you over forests and alpine meadows all the way to Pilatus Kulm, the mountain’s summit.
For an even more unique experience, head to the other side of the mountain, where you can take the steepest cogwheel railway in the world straight to the top via Alpnachstad (with a maximum gradient of almost 50%: extremely steep for a train).
There are all kinds of hiking trails around the mid-stations, and at the summit you can either enjoy the stunning views from the Oberhaupt platform – where you can see the lake and the Alps stretching for miles – or follow the so-called Dragon Path.
This short trail follows the ridge and introduces you to the myths and legends of the mountain (here be dragons!) as you walk through a series of impressive rock formations.
11. Good food in Lucerne: local specialties and restaurants
There’s plenty of great food to enjoy in Lucerne, but there are two specific places I’d like to mention. Restaurant Pfistern, overlooking the river in the old town, is a traditional spot where you can order Kügelipastete. This is an iconic regional dish from the canton: a dome-shaped pastry filled with a rich, creamy ragout of veal and mushrooms.
Even more special was the raclette dinner I had with cheese sommelier Roly Lobsiger at Hotel Wilden Mann (more specifically in Taverne zur Alten Münz: a small historic building owned by the hotel). Some potatoes, some pickled vegetables and a whole board of different cheeses to melt: life can be beautifully simple sometimes. Add to that a table full of lively company, and it quickly turned into an evening to remember. Across from me sat a friendly lady who had once babysat Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s dressed-up chimp – not even joking, there were pictures.
PS: This raclette dinner can only be booked on the second Wednesday of the month, so you’ll need a bit of luck.
Practical travel tips for Lucerne and Switzerland
**There are a couple of affiliate links to interesting activities or hotels in this article. Are you thinking of booking a hotel or tour in Lucerne? Please do so through one of my links. Doesn’t cost you an extra cent, and it gives me a small compensation for my writing. Thank you in advance.**
Learn more about Lucerne
For everything you need to know about Lucerne as a tourist, head to: www.luzern.com.
For Switzerland as a whole, visit: www.myswitzerland.com.
I’d like to thank the lovely Leandra and Tamara from the Lucerne Tourist Office for the great programme, and for keeping this lone traveller company on both the sauna boat and the Subspirit – it must have been tough leaving all that exciting office work behind on a whim. 😉
Travelling by train in Switzerland: the Swiss Travel Pass
Switzerland is one of the best and most convenient countries in the world to explore by train. Swiss trains are punctual, comfortable, and can take you to even the smallest hamlets.
If you plan to travel to multiple places and don’t want to buy a ticket every time, it’s best to purchase a Swiss Travel Pass. It allows unlimited travel by train, bus and boat for a period of your choice. You often also get discounts on mountain railways, such as the one to Mount Pilatus.
Hotels in Lucerne
If you prefer not to sleep in a prison (your loss), there are plenty of other great hotels to choose from in Lucerne. Here are three highly rated options in different price ranges:
–Capsule Hotel Lucerne Old Town (budget): a capsule hotel similar to those in Japan, but modern and very stylish. Located in the old town, near the Lion Monument.
–Hotel Des Alpes (midrange): a charming hotel in the old town, with views of the water and the Chapel Bridge. Ideal location, comfortable and reasonably priced for Switzerland.
–Hotel des Balances (Luxe/boutique): located in almost the same spot, but this one is a high-end hotel with top-notch rooms. A fantastic stay, but noticeably more expensive.
Tours & Activities in Lucerne
There are far more activities to try in Lucerne than I could fit into this article. GetYourGuide provides a great overview.
Internet in Switzerland: eSIMs and mobile data
Switzerland is not part of the EU roaming zone, so mobile internet can become very expensive if you’re not aware of this.
Before you arrive, it’s best to buy a local eSIM. I’ve been using Airalo eSIMs for years. Airalo is an app that allows you to purchase mobile data for almost any country in just a few clicks. Install everything at home and activate the SIM after landing – that’s all it takes.
How many days do you need in Lucerne?
You’ll need about two days to see the main sights, enjoy the lake, and explore the city at a relaxed pace. Add an extra day or two if you want to go hiking in the mountains or try additional outdoor activities.
Fancy a different trip?
Want to explore another part of Switzerland? Check out my articles on Ticino, Interlaken, or the Cover Festival in Davos.
In the mood for another European city instead? Prague, Nantes, Warsaw, Ostrava, and Cascais are all great options.
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