Why Switzerland's Lake Lucerne is the ultimate slow travel destination

21.07.2023 - 07:44 / roughguides.com / queen Victoria / Lake Lucerne

Switzerland has a reputation for being the destination of choice for ski fiends and adrenaline junkies, but Lake Lucerne, right in the heart of the country, is perfect for anyone who appreciates taking it slow.

If your ideal holiday is filled with lake cruises, gentle hikes and long, leisurely lunches where you can measure the cow-to-table distance of your cheese plate in metres, then you’ll be enchanted by Lucerne and the surrounding lake region. Here’s how to have a perfect slow travel escape.

Sketch a pretty central European city in your mind and you might just imagine Lucerne, with its medieval covered bridges spanning the rushing waters of the River Reuss, baroque churches, old-town squares and elaborately frescoed facades that recount the town’s history in images.

Before setting out on your travels around the lake, spend a day exploring the alleyways of this delightful city. Start by criss-crossing the river to take in both covered bridges, Kapellbrücke and Spreuerbrücke, famous for the painted panels under their eaves – the latter with a series of macabre scenes of the Dance of Death.

© Mariia Golovianko/Shutterstock

To get a sense of the city’s glorious setting, next clamber up one of the towers of the old town defences. From here you can look out over the church spires and lake to the hazy peaks beyond.

Look the other way instead, and no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you if you spot a pair of alpaca and a few highland cattle grazing in a meadow. This is the adorably quaint Hinter Musegg nestled just beyond the town walls, a mini-farm (with mini pigs), microbrewery and farm shop – an incongruous taste of village life just minutes from the heart of the city.

Said to be the most beautiful lake in Switzerland – and there’s stiff competition – Lake Lucerne’s appeal comes from its unusual shape, with four fingers of water sprawling out over the landscape, forming in turn both wide expanses of crystalline blue and narrow passages framed by looming peaks.

The only way to get a sense of its shape and the drama of the scenery is from a boat. Five majestic vintage paddle steamers, dating from the early 1900s, sedately tour the lake and its villages.

Kept in pristine shape, the steamboats’ engines churn below deck, while you relax on the sun deck and watch as the scene shifts around you.

Switzerland is the sort of place where cities have their own “home” mountain, and Lucerne’s is Mount Pilatus, a starkly dramatic solitary peak that rises directly above the city, giving rise to all sorts of legends about dark histories and resident dragons.

When Queen Victoria made the journey here she was carried on mule-back, but in 1889 they built an eye-wateringly steep cog-railway, which hits 48-degrees at its steepest, to take