Three days in Lucerne: people have been coming since Mark Twain, and they were right

Two nights in a town of 80,000 with a covered wooden bridge, a lake full of steamers and the steepest cogwheel railway in the world going up the hill behind it.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Lucerne
Places
6 across 3 days
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Lucerne has been in the business of being visited since the middle of the nineteenth century, and it shows in the best way: the boats, the mountain railways and the lakeside hotels all exist because somebody a hundred and fifty years ago wanted to see this and could not walk. Mark Twain came and wrote about the souvenir shops, which are still there.

None of that has spoiled it. The old town is genuinely medieval, painted head to foot, and small enough to cross in ten minutes. A wooden bridge with a painted roof runs diagonally across the river in the middle of it. Behind the town the ground goes up sharply, and one of the mountains has the steepest rack railway anywhere on it.

Three days is one for the town, one for the mountain and a last morning for the two things worth queueing for: a carved lion and a basement of Paul Klee.

Highlights

  • Walking the Chapel Bridge, painted rafters and all, then the ramparts of 1386 above the old town
  • The Golden Round Trip: a steamer to Alpnachstad, a rack railway up Pilatus, a cable car back down
  • Thorvaldsen's dying lion, cut into a cliff above the water and mourning a massacre in Paris
  • The Rosengart, where the Picassos are on the ground floor and the Klees fill the basement
  • Roast chicken and house-brewed beer in the cellars under the seventeenth-century town hall

Where to stay

Lucerne, two nights

Stay on the north bank inside the old walls if you can. Everything in this trip except the mountain starts within five minutes of the Chapel Bridge, and the station is a short walk across the river, which makes both the arrival and the departure trivial.

It is a small place: about 80,000 people, and the first city to join the Swiss Confederation. That combination of small and historically central is why the country's legends cluster here, William Tell included, across the water at Altdorf.

Day by day

Day 1 in Lucerne

The Chapel Bridge, the painted old town, the ramparts

Start on the water. The Chapel Bridge was put up in the fourteenth century as part of the town's defences, runs at an angle across the Reuss, and carries a set of painted panels in its rafters showing the city's history. A fire on 18 August 1993 destroyed most of them and much of the bridge; it was rebuilt inside a year, and if you look up you can still tell which panels are old and which are not.

North of the river the town is a few blocks of squares and covered passages with murals on what feels like every second facade. It is small enough that getting lost is a pleasant ten minutes rather than an afternoon.

Finish by climbing to the Museggmauer, the rampart wall of 1386 that runs along the ridge above the roofs. It survives almost complete, four of its towers are open and you can walk the wall walk between them. The one to climb is the Männliturm, which lets you out on the roof.

  1. 13:00

    Arrive at Lucerne railway station

    Travel

    The station sits on the lake with the boat piers directly outside it. The old town is over the bridge, five minutes away on foot.

  2. 15:00

    The Chapel Bridge

    Architecture

    A covered wooden bridge from the 1300s with painted panels in the roof beams and a stone water tower halfway along. Free, and busiest at midday.

  3. 15:45

    Explore the Old Town

    Visit

    Painted houses, small squares and covered passages, all of it walkable in an hour with a coffee in the middle.

  4. 17:15

    The old city wall

    Historic

    The rampart wall of 1386, almost intact. Four towers open, the wall walk between them, and the roof of the Männliturm for the best view. Daytime only.

  5. 19:30

    Dinner in the old town

    Eat

    The riverside tables go early on a warm evening, and nothing in the centre is more than a few minutes from anything else.

With more time: With more time, the second wooden bridge upstream is quieter than the famous one and its roof panels are a complete Dance of Death cycle from the 1600s.

Day 2 in Lucerne

Pilatus, by steamer up and cable car down

Give the whole day to the mountain. The classic version leaves by boat from in front of the station: an old steamer down the lake to Alpnachstad, which takes about ninety minutes and is worth doing for itself, since the lake bends between cliffs and changes character every twenty minutes.

From Alpnachstad the cogwheel railway climbs to the summit at a gradient no other rack railway in the world matches. At the top there is a hotel, several terraces and a ridge walk, and on a clear day a horizon of proper Alps rather than the green hills you see from town. Allow three hours up there even if you do not intend to hike.

Come down by cable car towards Kriens, where a trolleybus runs back into the city in ten minutes, then eat in the vaulted cellars under the old town hall: half a dozen house beers, sausages, sauerkraut and the roast chickens turning by the door. Book a table.

  1. 09:00

    Take a boat tour

    Travel

    Paddle steamer from the pier outside the station to Alpnachstad, about ninety minutes. The full run to Flüelen takes three hours if you would rather stay on the water all day.

  2. 11:00

    Mount Pilatus

    Nature

    Up on the world's steepest cogwheel railway, down by cable car to Kriens. The railway is closed in winter, when the cable car is the only way up.

  3. 19:00

    Rathaus Brauerei

    Eat

    House-brewed beer, sausages and roast Güggeli chicken in the medieval cellars below the town hall. Book ahead, and expect singing.

With more time: With more time, or worse weather, the same day works with Rigi instead: a gentler mountain across the lake, reached by boat and a rack railway that has been running since 1871.

Day 3 in Lucerne

The dying lion, then a basement of Paul Klee

Ten minutes uphill from the old town, a wounded lion lies dying in a cliff above a pond. Bertel Thorvaldsen designed it for the Swiss Guards cut down at the Tuileries in 1792, and Mark Twain thought it the most mournful piece of stone in the world. Coaches arrive from mid-morning, so come at nine and have it to yourself.

Then walk back to the Rosengart, two minutes from the station. It is a private collection turned museum: Picasso on the ground floor, a floor of Léger, Kandinsky, Dufy and others above, and in the basement a hundred and twenty-five works by Paul Klee, which is the reason to come. Ask for the printed list of titles, because Klee's handwriting defeats most people.

The station is across the square when you are done, which makes the last morning here easier than in most cities.

  1. 09:00

    The Lion Monument

    Historic

    Thorvaldsen's lion, carved into the cliff for the Swiss Guards killed in Paris in 1792. Go early: it is small, and the tour groups are not.

  2. 10:15

    The Rosengart Collection

    Culture

    Picasso upstairs, Klee in the basement, over two hundred works in all. Opening is later in winter than in summer, so check before you plan the morning.

  3. 13:30

    Train from Lucerne railway station

    Travel

    An hour to Zurich or Bern, about two to Interlaken over the Brünig, and a little over three to Milan through the Gotthard.

With more time: With a later train, the transport museum along the lake is the busiest museum in the country and has real locomotives, a Mercury capsule and a planetarium in it.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

Lucerne is an hour from Zurich by train with departures every half hour, an hour from Bern, and about two hours from Interlaken on the Zentralbahn line over the Brünig pass, which is a scenic trip in its own right rather than a way of losing a morning.

In town you walk. The old town is small, and the two outlying attractions, the transport museum and the lido, are a lakeside stroll of half an hour or a short boat ride from in front of the station.

Anybody staying a night gets a visitor card from their hotel, which covers buses and local trains for the length of the stay. Ask for it at check-in rather than discovering it on the last day.

What the mountain costs

The mountain railways are privately run and are not cheap: the full Golden Round Trip up Pilatus comes to well over a hundred francs a head. A Swiss rail pass usually gets a substantial discount rather than free travel, so check what yours covers before you buy at the counter.

Doing it in pieces costs a good deal less. Train to Alpnachstad, cogwheel railway to the top, first cable car down and then walk the last stretch into Kriens is the cheap version, and the walk down takes about two hours.

The cogwheel railway from Alpnachstad does not run in winter. From roughly November to May the only way up is the cable car from Kriens, which does run all year.

When to go

May to October, for the boats and the cogwheel railway. High summer is busy in a specific way: coach parties arrive mid-morning for the bridge and the lion and are gone by four, so early mornings and evenings feel like a different town.

Winter is quiet, cheap and often under cloud at lake level while the mountain tops are in sun, which is a good reason to go up rather than a reason to stay in.

Lucerne is the version of Switzerland people carry in their heads before they arrive: painted houses, a wooden bridge, a steamer on the lake, snow on the skyline. The unusual thing is that it delivers all of it inside a ten minute walk, and then sells you a ticket up a mountain.

It also sits in the middle of the map. Zurich, Bern and Interlaken are each about an hour or two away by train, so a couple of nights here fits into almost any Swiss route without a detour.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How many days do you need in Lucerne?
Three, if you want a mountain. The town itself is a day, and an excellent one, but the reason to sleep here is that Pilatus and Rigi both take a full day and both start from the pier outside the station. Two nights buys you one mountain without rushing.
Pilatus or Rigi?
Pilatus is the dramatic one: bare rock, a summit ridge and the steepest rack railway in the world. Rigi is gentler, greener, has a wider view of the lakes and stays open all winter. If the forecast is mixed, take Rigi, since Pilatus in cloud is an expensive way to see fog.
Is Lucerne too touristy?
It is very busy between about ten and four in summer, and almost empty either side. Stay the night rather than coming as a day trip and you get the bridge at seven in the morning and the ramparts at dusk, which is a completely different town from the one the coaches see.
Can you do Lucerne as a day trip from Zurich?
You can, and the train takes about an hour, but you will get the crowded middle of the day and no mountain. If you only have one day, come early and go up Rigi rather than trying to do the town and a summit together.