Lucernce - Your Next Stop in Switzerland

Lucerne Blues Festival

7 - 16 Nov (annual)
Where:Grand Casino Lucerne
The annual Lucerne Blues Festival brings a week of music to the Grand Casino Lucerne, where the cosy rooms add to the special flair of the event, and other local venues.Since 1995 music lovers have been drawn to the beautiful site at Lake Lucerne, surrounded by the Rigi and Pilatus mountains.The line-up in 2008 includes names like Curtis Salgado, Bettye La Vette and The Cash Box Kings with special guest Oscar Wilson, but also provides less famous musicians with a chance to show their stuff.If you want to take advantage of the free concerts on offer, then put the opening concerts' dates in your diary - 7 November, 8pm, at Hotel Flora Lucerne and 12 November, 11pm, at Grand Casino Lucerne.

Lucerne Carnival. Photo by Chris Devers

Photo by Chris Devers


Fumetto Lucerne. Photo by Suzanna


Lucerne Yodelling Festival
Photo by Jay8085

Lucerne Carnival

9 Feb (various dates)
If you think Switzerland is just about mountains and snow, give the Lucerne Carnival (or Loz?rner Fasnacht) a chance. The entire town goes crazy with a lantern-lit parade, musical groups and hundreds of people dressed in masks and costumes.The Lucerne Carnival dates back to the 15th century and the fun always kicks off at 5am on Schmutziger Donnerstag (Dirty Thursday, the Thursday before Ash Wednesday), when the Fritschi father and his escorts wave from the windows of the Town Hall and a gun signals the start of carnival.

At 2pm there is a wild parade of big bands, lights and lanterns from Luzernerhof to Waldst?tterstrasse. After the parade (around 3pm) and up until midnight the bands wander through the city playing in bars, restaurants and squares.

Fumetto Festival

Apr (annual)
Where:Lucerne
Comic lovers flock to the medieval town of Lucerne for the annual Fumetto Festival, a celebration of the world's best comic-strip artists and cartoonists. Themed exhibitions, events and competitions are held at venues throughout the town.Despite living in a digital era, this festival is irrefutable proof of the timeless appeal of the comic. While paying homage to the likes of Beano and Peanuts, the competition also sees cutting-edge comics move swiftly into the 21st century. Budding talent gets the chance to shine and up-and-coming artists present their work to a wider audience.

Lucerne Yodelling Festival

Jun (annual)
Where:Lucerne
Over 15,000 professional yodellers turn out to stretch their vocal chords at the Yodelling Festival Lucerne. When the yodellers can yodel no more, festivals and folk concerts take over, drawing the fun out until the wee hours.
Yodelling begun as a means of communication between neighbours that lived peaks apart. Originally this art form was known as Juchzin, short yells with different meanings such as "time for tea" or "we're on our way". Despite other means of communication today, the tradition is still very much alive, but is more focused on the sound produced rather than the meaning.Yodellers, flag throwers and alphorn players flock to this high-pitched event.

Circus Knie

Jul - Aug (annual)
Where:Allemand
Cost:SFr20-SFr75
Opening Hours:Daily 8pm; mats Wed, Sat & Sun 3pm
No performance 1 AugThe Swiss National Circus Knie is on tour once again, with a programme that is as captivating as ever. In late July they take up residence at the Allemand in Lucerne.For 200 years, members of the Knie family have created and built on the legend of the Circus Knie, making it one of the most famous in Europe and across the world. Many of their top international artists have been awarded prizes from the Monaco Circus Festival.Of course, the Knie family also perform their most popular acts - the famous elephant and horse acts and an unusual seal show make the circus an irresistible attraction for kids and grown-ups alike.

Lucerne Festival Orchestra

13 Aug - 21 Sep (annual)
Where:Kultur- und Kongresszentrum
One of the great European music festivals, the Lucerne Festival continues to attract top international performers.The main orchestral concerts are performed in the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum, with its imposing location at the side of the lake.

Each year the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras perform along with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, set up especially for the event.

China Restaurant Li-Tai-Pe

Cuisine Beijing, Chinese
This long-standing Chinese restaurant was founded in 1965 by "grande dame" Margaret Chi Tsun, whose late husband was once an aide to General Chiang Kai-shek. After Chi Tsun's death in 2002, the restaurant is now run by her daughter, Greta Chi. Although fickle fame has passed on, the restaurant is still here and serving many of the same excellent dishes it always did. Located on a narrow street in the Old Town, the restaurant has two levels and is decorated with Asian artifacts and somber lighting. Many sweet-and-sour dishes are offered, such as codfish, pork, or crispy chicken. Two especially good dishes are chicken Kung Bao (made with peanuts and chile) and stewed beef with crispy rice. Boaling are dumplings with different fillings, a choice appetizer. You may also begin with egg-blossom soup, to be followed by beef with tomatoes or chicken with green peppers.

Hotel des Balances. Photo by cogito ergo imago

Des Balances

Cuisine Swiss, International
At this hotel in Altstadt, opening onto the historic Weinmarkt, is one of the city's exceptional restaurants. The building housing it was the town jail back in 1369, but it was converted into a restaurant in 1519. Its terrace, with a view of the river Reuss, is one of the most hotly contested seats in town on a balmy summer night. Its refined nouvelle-inspired cuisine attracts both locals and visitors.The decor is a stylish combination of medieval masonry, 19th-century wrought iron, and postmodern, hi-tech lighting. The menu is divided into conservative and modern cuisine, both of them very successful. Modern dishes include marinated salmon with mussels and apricot chutney; fresh basil-studded ravioli with black olives, parmesan, and pepperoni; braised filet of zander with coconut-and-chili sauce; Asian vegetables, and roasted sesame. More conservative and traditional dishes include calves' liver with balsamic vinegar and r?sti; grilled filets of veal with an herb-flavored cream sauce; freshwater crabs grilled with feta cheese and marinated herbs; filets of pikeperch with olive oil and artichoke hearts; roasted rabbit stuffed with chanterelles and basil; Sisteron lamb in puff pastry with olive oil and thyme juices; and breast of chicken stuffed with shrimp and dill, on a bed of marinated sweet peppers.

Hofstube

Cuisine Swiss, French
This flourishing restaurant is in the Hotel Zum Rebstock, next to a building used as a guildhall for Lucerne winegrowers in the Middle Ages. The 1920s-style entrance hall is filled with valuable Art Deco pieces. This is a historic Swiss-style restaurant, with two different dining rooms, both folkloric and charming. The older is the Hofstube; the slightly newer dining area is the Hofegge, which is the site of an elaborate Sunday brunch from 7am to 3pm. Beyond the dining area is a large, illuminated courtyard, where additional tables are set up on warm summer nights. The menu, a classic blend of Swiss and French traditions, usually includes an impressive array of terrines, delicious lake trout, suckling veal with spinach, filet of pork and beef in a cognac sauce, and veal and sultanas in puff pastry.

Rathaus Brauerei Restaurant

Cuisine Swiss
This is one of the few establishments in Lucerne that brews its beer on-site. They usually include at least four, whose individual characteristics vary according to the season, but which will usually feature the most popular brand, Rathaus Bier, a blond lager that's available year-round; as well as wheat beer; a dark beer known as dunkel; and the heaviest, darkest, and strongest of all, bok. It's located under the arcades of the riverfront promenade, close to the northern terminus of the city's well-known covered bridge, immediately beneath the exhibitions of the Picasso Museum. You can dine in the open air, or head inside to a series of medieval vaults that shelter the polished copper of the fermentation vats. Menu items reflect the savory, hearty dishes that seem to go well with beer, including schnitzels, lamb steak, Swiss sausage (of veal or pork), and grilled chicken breast filets, as well as deep-fried pikeperch.

The Stadtkeller Swiss Folklore restaurant in Lucerne, Switzerland. Photo by southbayer

Stadtkeller

Cuisine Swiss
Although there's been an inn in the cellar of Lucerne's town hall since 1685, none of its earlier versions has placed such a heavy emphasis on Swiss folklore. In a cavernous cellar lined with antique accessories, you can enjoy hearty alpine meals whose flavors are enhanced by doses of folk music, which begins at 12:15pm at lunch and at 8pm during dinner. Depending on your tastes, you'll find the experience harmless or just a bit corny, although many visitors consider it the Swiss equivalent of a beer hall in Munich. The most economical way to enjoy the place is simply to order a half liter of beer, with a supplemental charge that's imposed whenever music is playing. But to really get into the experience, consider the heaping platters of smoked pork with sauerkraut, pork or veal sausages with r?sti, several kinds of schnitzel with mushrooms, or roulade of beef with new potatoes. Folk music is featured only from March to October.

Vinotek Opus

Cuisine Continental, Mediterranean
Set within a pair of interconnected medieval buildings, one side of which opens onto views of the river, this wine bar rocks and rolls in one of the most irreverent formats in town. It's understood that you'll come here for at least one glass (and perhaps several) of the Swiss and foreign wines served. You can also order platters of Serrano-style smoked ham, Italian soft cheese marinated in olive oil with garlic, vitello tonnato, a tartare of smoked salmon, and gazpacho studded with smoked mussels. There are even some experimental dishes such as Asian lasagna "Shanghai" (with Asian vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, snow peas, tofu, and soy sprouts), or red snapper in red curry sauce, as well as more mainstream platters such as fried perch filets or roulades of rabbit filet. The cellar contains more than 650 types of wine. Sprawling and convivial, there's seating in two dining rooms, at tables beside two different bars, and on a wide terrace beside the river overlooking the Old Town.

Photo by ThomasBredenfeld

The Bourbaki Panorama

This is the world's best replica of a 19th-century bloodbath that reinforced Switzerland's role as a neutral (nonaligned) power, and that provided the first testing ground for the then-fledging Red Cross. It commemorates an incident in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) when the defeated French forces of General Charles Bourbaki (1816-97) fled out of France into Switzerland to avoid annihilation by the Germans. In Switzerland the starving, diseased, and disorganized French forces were disarmed by the Swiss army, then welcomed into homes throughout Switzerland for rest and recuperation from the brutal winter. Today the event is hailed as one of the finest acts of humanitarian courage in Swiss history, and celebrated in the form of this circular painting, completed in 1881, of the bloody battlefield. Originally conceived as a Barnum & Bailey-style tourist attraction in the 19th-century, the site was converted into an auto repair shop in 1925, and the painting was "shortened" in two separate incidents that ultimately removed about 3.6m (12 ft.) of gray sky from the top of the wraparound panorama. Between 1996 and 2003, the site was rebuilt, the painting cleaned, and the museum opened, with recorded narration, as a celebration of a genuinely bizarre but evocative interlude in European history. Be prepared for the recorded sounds of gunshots

Photo by Michael Dawes

Photo by Michael Dawes


Glacier Garden.
Photo by Olivier Bruchez

Swiss Transport Museum

This museum is the best of its kind in Europe and the most-visited museum in Lucerne. It's located beyond the Haldenstrasse cable-car station, lying more than a mile northeast of the center and accessible via bus. All forms of transportation, old and new, are on display, including railway cars, airplanes, automobiles, ships, and spaceships. Also on display is the oldest steamboat in the country, the Riga, built in 1847. The most popular exhibition is a scale model of a Swiss railway crossing the Gotthard Pass (a dozen trains move simultaneously). Children delight in an adventure ride called the Gotthard Tunnel Show.The Longines Planetarium is at the eastern end of the complex. Here you can experience the constellations, a solar and lunar eclipse, and simulated space travel. Also attached to the transport museum is the Hans Erni House, containing artwork by this well-known native son. The museum has an IMAX theater as well.

Glacier Garden

This so-called glacier garden has 32 "potholes" that were worn into the sandstone bed of an Iron Age glacier, during the era when ice covered the surface of Lake Lucerne. Discovered and cleared of their debris in 1872, the holes measure up to 9m (30 ft.) wide and almost as deep. A museum at the site contains a famous 18th-century relief map of the Alps, prehistoric remains of plant and animal life, and a Swiss homeland museum. A 12-minute film is also shown to visitors