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50-615: Built by hotel and railway businessman Franz Josef Bucher , it was the first of its type in Switzerland when first opened in 1905. The lift carries passengers 153 m (502 ft) up to the summit of the Hammetschwand in under a minute, and holds the record for the highest exterior lift in Europe. The current lift was built and opened by the Schindler Group . The original lift operated at

100-494: A boathouse and buoy field on Churchill-Quai in Lucerne. The Brunnen water sports club (Wassersportclub Brunnen), founded in 1958, held on Lake Lucerne in the first years of its existence international motorboat races and water ski championships. In 1965 the association chose a new name for the club: Lake Lucerne Water Sports Club (Wassersport-Club Vierwaldstättersee). The Central Switzerland Motorboat Club (Motorbootclub Zentralschweiz)

150-462: A further 1,000 Egyptians: Bucher himself died shortly before the Semiramis opened in 1906. Sources differ as to whether by his two marriages, Bucher had 14 or 15 recorded children. Six of his sons took leading positions in his hotels business and which also employed his sons-in-law and many remoter kinsfolk. Following his death, his sons Fritz and Arnold took over leadership of the business. It

200-576: A member of the Cantonal Council of Obwalden . He was an energetic entrepreneur who attracted anecdotes reflecting his original and direct approach. Bucher was born in Kerns , Obwalden , a small town roughly 22 km (15 miles) south of Lucerne . His father, Sébastien Bucher, was a farmer and local councilor. The boy attended the school in Kerns and then went on to college in the cantonal capital, Sarnen ,

250-468: A short distance further up the valley to the south. After some years working as a herdsman and farmer he teamed up with Joseph Durrer, his future brother in law to form, in 1864, the business "Bucher & Durrer". In 1868, the two of them opened a factory on the edge of Sarnen, at Kägiswil , where they constructed timber flooring, soon moving on to become constructors of timber barns and houses. In 1869/70, "Bucher & Durrer" built their first hotel,

300-407: A speed of 1 metre per second (3.3 ft/s) and took nearly three minutes to reach the summit of the Hammetschwand, carrying up to eight people in its wooden and zinc-plated cab. In 1935, the lift's speed was increased to 2.7 metres per second (8.9 ft/s) and the cab was replaced with a lighter metal construction. At this time it was not only the highest public external elevator in Europe, but also

350-428: A total area of 114 km (44 sq mi) at an elevation of 434 m (1,424 ft) a.s.l., and a maximum depth of 214 m (702 ft). Its volume is 11.8 km . Much of the shoreline rises steeply into mountains up to 1,500 m above the lake, resulting in many picturesque views including those of the mountains Rigi and Pilatus. The Reuss enters the lake at Flüelen, in the part called Urnersee ( Lake of Uri , in

400-663: A valley that stretches with scarcely a break in between the Uri Alps and the Emmental Alps . At the eastern end of the Gersauer Becken, where the containing walls of the lake-valley are directed from east to west, it is joined at an acute angle by the arm of Uri, or the Urnersee , lying in the northern prolongation of the deep cleft that gives a passage to the Reuss , between the Uri Alps and

450-466: Is rather chilly all year round and therefore mostly very clear. In Lake Uri, at Sisikon, one can dive to a fragmented steep vertical wall, at the northern portal of the Schieferneggtunnel. The Lediwrack Bruno lies in front of Brunnen at a depth of 15 meters. Other well-known diving spots are in front of Vitznau, Weggis, Gersau and Hergiswil. The Swiss Armed Forces historically used Lake Lucerne as

500-512: Is the Dammastock at 3,630 metres above sea level. The name of Vierwaldstättersee is first used in the 16th century. Before the 16th century, the entire lake was known as Luzerner See "Lake Lucerne", as remains the English (and partly Italian, as Lago di Lucerna ) usage. The (three) " Waldstätte(n) " (lit.: "forested sites/settlements", in English usually translated as forest cantons ) since

550-671: The Fronalpstock and the Rophaien (2078 m). Between them the steep glen or ravine of the Riemenstaldener Tal descends to Sisikon , the only village with Flüelen right on the shore on that side of the Urnersee. On the opposite or western shore, the mountains attain still greater dimensions. The Niederbauen Chulm is succeeded by the Oberbauenstock , and farther south, above the ridge of

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600-616: The Glarus Alps . The Urnersee occupies the northernmost and deep portion of the great cleft of the Reuss Valley, which has cut through the Alpine ranges from the St Gotthard Pass to the neighbourhood of Schwyz . From its eastern shore the mountains rise in almost bare walls of rock to a height of from 3,000 to 4,000 ft (910 to 1,220 m) above the water. The two highest summits are

650-712: The canton of Uri ) and exits at Lucerne. The lake also receives the Muota at Brunnen, the Engelberger Aa at Buochs , and the Sarner Aa at Alpnachstad. It is possible to circumnavigate the lake by train and road, though the railway route circumvents the lake even on the north side of the Rigi via Arth-Goldau . Since 1980, the A2 motorway leads through the Seelisberg Tunnel in order to reach

700-555: The funicular at the Mura delle Chiappe (1896) and an electric tramline, necessary to provide adequate access to his newly purchased hotel in the city. On its completion, he sold the tramline to the municipality for one million Swiss francs, which he insisted on receiving in cash. This he placed in a large linen sack which he took back to Kerns , proudly showing fellow villagers his first million and buying drinks for many. He also had himself photographed in his garden at home, accompanied by

750-554: The pithy dialect of his home canton . Despite the importance within his hotels empire of Ticino , Rome and Genoa , it was said that the only word of Italian that he uttered with any frequency was "Avanti!". Josef Bucher was a local councillor in Kerns, also serving, between 1884 and 1896, on the Cantonal Council . He was an instigator, co-founder and board member of the Cantonal Bank . Lake Lucerne Lake Lucerne ( German : Vierwaldstättersee , literally 'Lake of

800-546: The "Sonnenberg-Hotel" in Engelberg . They sold it at a profit after a year. In 1871, Bucher purchased the lakeside "Trittalp" meadow located on a ridge on the Bürgenstock (mountain). Here he built the 220 bed "Grand Hotel Kurhaus", subsequently renamed "Grand Hotel Bürgenstock", which opened in 1873. Bucher oversaw the construction himself. The luxury hotel was a success, which led to expansion. Between 1887 and 1905,

850-488: The 14th century were the confederate allies of Uri , Schwyz and Unterwalden . The notion of "Four Waldstätten" ( Vier Waldstätten ), with the addition of the canton of Lucerne , is first recorded in the 1450s, in an addition to the "Silver Book" of Egloff Etterlin of Lucerne. The nine different parts of the lake have individual designations: The lake is navigable, and has formed an important part of Switzerland's transport system for many centuries, and at least since

900-431: The 1880s, the business activities of Bucher and his partner Joseph Durrer diverged, with Durrer focusing on timber based building and construction, while Bucher concentrated on the hotel business. However, it was only in 1895 that the business of "Bucher & Durrer" was formally split. Bucher's portion of the business was renamed "Schweizerische Hotelgesellschaft", which by the start of the twentieth century had become

950-520: The Alps. Lake Lucerne has twice been used as a venue for the European Rowing Championships : in 1908 and then in 1926 . The nearby Rotsee has since 1933 been used for rowing regattas instead. On the way south, the English discovered the mountains of central Switzerland. Several spa and bathing resorts such as Weggis or Gersau were created. In 1871, the very first rack railway in Europe,

1000-581: The Bürgenstock Hotel grew into a substantial hotel resort-complex. To improve access to the inherently inaccessible mountaintop hotel, a funicular railway , claimed to be the first electric railway in Switzerland, was opened in 1888. After early technical challenges had been overcome, the funicular became a highly effective tourist magnet. The Bürgenstock also featured electric lighting and electric elevators many years before these features became mainstream, and long before public power supplies became

1050-915: The Bürgenstock, the Stanserhorn , the Buochserhorn, and the two legends, the Urirotstock and the Fronalpstock are attractive panoramic mountains near Lake Lucerne. Most of them can be reached by mountain railways, some of which have their valley station near boat stations on the lake. There are numerous locations on the lake that are important in Swiss cultural and tourism history: Rütli, Tellsplatte, Tell Chapel, Carving Tower of Stansstad, Neu-Habsburg, Schillerstein, Treib, Astrid Chapel (Küssnacht) and Meggenhorn Castle. Different sports are possible in some separate areas due to

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1100-466: The Hotel Quirinal. This was not the only time that Josef Bucher drew attention with his unconventional business methods. Despite commercial success, Josef Bucher always retained an underlying humility. He never ate with the guests in his hotel dining rooms, but insisted on eating with the hotel personnel. Various legends circulate in this connection. On one occasion he noticed that only one of

1150-607: The Scharti, appear the snowy peaks of the Gitschen and the Uri Rotstock (2,928 m). In the centre opens the Reuss Valley, backed by the rugged summits of the Urner and Glarner Alps . The breadth of these various sections of the lake is very variable, but is usually between one and two miles (3 km). The lake's surface, whose mean height above the sea is 434 metres, is the lowest point of

1200-639: The Vitznau-Rigi Railway, was opened. In 1889 the steepest cog railway in the world was built from Alpnachstad to Mount Pilatus . Mark Twain described an ascent to the Rigi, which led to the blossoming of Swiss tourism in the United States in the 19th century. One of the largest steamship fleets in Europe operates with five steamships on Lake Lucerne. In the area surrounding the lake and on terraces at medium height (for example Morschach and Seelisberg) there are numerous places for tourists. The Rigi, Pilatus,

1250-677: The braking system ( Zangenbremsen ). Further railways constructed by the firm included the Monte San Salvatore funicular opened on the edge of Lugano in 1890, the short but steep funicular in Lugano linking the city to its mainline station (1886), the Reichenbach Falls funicular (1899) and the Vevey–Chardonne–Mont-Pèlerin funicular (1900). Bucher's railway building was not restricted to Switzerland. In Genoa he built

1300-502: The cantons of Uri, Obwalden and Nidwalden. Originally the lake was susceptible to variations in level and flooding along its shoreline. Between 1859 and 1860, the introduction of a needle dam in the Reuss in the city of Lucerne, just upstream from the Spreuerbrücke , allowed the lake level to be stabilised. The culminating point of the lake's drainage basin, as well as Central Switzerland,

1350-483: The cash, his wife, and two of their children, using a new medium to provide visual evidence of his enhanced credit-worthiness. Asked why he had nevertheless, as usual, traveled home in a third class railway carriage, he is said to have explained that the Gotthard Railway did not offer a fourth class. Having celebrated his triumph with his neighbours he set off with his bag of cash for Rome, where he used it to buy

1400-738: The east to reach the Vitznauer Bucht . In front of Vitznau below the Rigi the lake turns sharply west again to reach the center of a four-arm cross, called the Chrütztrichter (Cross Funnel). Here converge the Vitznauer Bucht with the Küssnachtersee from the north, the Luzernersee from the west, and the Horwer Bucht and the Stanser Trichter to the south, which is to be found right below

1450-404: The fastest elevator in the world. The filigrain , metal lattice tower has a surface area of 2 by 2 metres (6 ft 7 in × 6 ft 7 in), is 118 m (387 ft) high and is located on a 44 m (144 ft) high rock pit. The elevator entrance, the engine room and the first 14 m (46 ft) of the pit are within the mountain, while the next 30 m (98 ft) of

1500-564: The founding of the Swiss Confederation , is on the Urnersee shore. A 35 km commemorative walkway, the Swiss Path , was built around the Lake of Uri to celebrate the country's 700th anniversary in 1991. Archaeologists surveying the lake-bed (during the construction of a pipeline) from 2019 to 2021 found the remains of a Bronze Age village with artifacts dating to around 1000 BC. Later,

1550-444: The four forested settlements ' (in English usually translated as forest cantons ), French : lac des Quatre-Cantons , Italian : lago dei Quattro Cantoni ) is a lake in central Switzerland and the fourth largest in the country. The lake has a complicated shape, with several sharp bends and four arms. It starts in the south–north bound Reuss Valley between steep cliffs above the Urnersee from Flüelen towards Brunnen to

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1600-442: The gravel dredging industry that operates on the lake, using large dredgers to obtain sand and gravel for use in the construction industry . Beethoven 's Moonlight Sonata derives its name from an 1832 description of the first movement by poet and music critic Ludwig Rellstab , who compared it to moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne. Gioacchino Rossini uses this in his William Tell Overture Section A: Sunrise over

1650-555: The lake of much of its through traffic, it continues to be used by a considerable number of vessels, both private and public. Much of this usage is tourist or leisure oriented, but the lake continues to provide practical public and cargo transport links between the smaller lakeside communities. Passenger boats of the Schifffahrtsgesellschaft des Vierwaldstättersees (SGV) provide services on the lake, including many run by historic paddle steamers . The SGV serves 32 places along

1700-648: The largest hotels undertaking in the world, as Franz Josef Bucher, supported by his growing family, constructed a succession of luxury hotels in and beyond Europe. Particularly high profile creations included the Hotel Quirinal in Rome and the Hotel Palace Luzern . The last hotel he created was the Hotel Semiramis in Cairo , where it is reported that he simultaneously employed 300 European construction workers together with

1750-475: The new findings indicated that the area was settled 2,000 years earlier than historians previously thought. Lake Lucerne borders on the three original Swiss cantons of Uri , Schwyz , and Unterwalden (which today is divided into the cantons of Obwalden and Nidwalden ), as well as the canton of Lucerne , thus the name Vierwaldstättersee (lit.: Lake of the Four Forested Settlements). Many of

1800-419: The norm. Bucher built a hydro-electric generating plant, which came into operation in 1886/87, for the growing complex. An additional use for the power supply came with the construction in 1905 of the remarkable Hammetschwand Lift / Elevator , an outdoor device that carries visitors up a vertical distance of more than 100 meters on order to access a look-out position with views across Lake Lucerne . During

1850-665: The north before it makes a sharp bend to the west where it continues into the Gersauer Becken . Here is also the deepest point of the lake with 214 m (702 ft). Even further west of it is the Buochser Bucht , but the lake sharply turns north again through the narrow opening between the Unter Nas (lower nose) of the Bürgenstock to the west and the Ober Nas (upper nose) of the Rigi to

1900-657: The northeast side of the Pilatus and the west side of the Bürgenstock. At the very narrow pass between the east dropper of the Pilatus (called Lopper ) and Stansstad the lake reaches its southwestern arm at Alpnachstad on the steep southern foothills of the Pilatus, the Alpnachersee . The lake drains its water into the Reuss in Lucerne from its arm called Luzernersee (which literally translates as Lake of Lucerne ). The entire lake has

1950-401: The oldest communities of Switzerland are along the shore, including Küssnacht , Weggis , Vitznau , Gersau , Brunnen , Altdorf , Buochs , and Treib . Lake Lucerne is singularly irregular and appears to lie in four different valleys, all related to the conformation of the adjoining mountains. The central portion of the lake lies in two parallel valleys whose direction is from west to east,

2000-409: The one lying north, the other south of the ridge of the Bürgenstock . These are connected through a narrow strait, scarcely one kilometre wide, between the two rocky promontories called respectively Unter Nas and Ober Nas (Lower and Upper Nose). It is not unlikely that the southern of these two divisions of the lake—called Buochser Bucht —formerly extended to the west over the isthmus whereon stands

2050-499: The opening of the first track across the Gotthard Pass in 1230. This trade grew with the opening of a new mail coach road across the pass in 1830. This road had its northern terminus at Flüelen at the extreme eastern end of the lake, and the lake provided the only practical onward link to Lucerne , and hence the cities of northern Switzerland and beyond. Whilst the development of Switzerland's road and rail networks has relieved

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2100-559: The route to the Gotthard Pass in just half an hour in Altdorf, Uri right south of the beginning of the lake in Flüelen. Steamers and other passenger boats ply between the different villages and towns on the lake. It is a popular tourist destination, both for native Swiss and foreigners, and there are many hotels and resorts along the shores. In addition, the meadow of the Rütli , traditional site of

2150-402: The shaft extend into the open air, offering a view of Lake Lucerne. At the top station of Hammetschwand (1,132 m (3,714 ft) above sea level), there are panoramic views of the lake and the Alps. 47°00′04″N 8°23′47″E  /  47.00111°N 8.39639°E  / 47.00111; 8.39639 Franz Josef Bucher Franz Josef Bucher (17 January 1834 – 6 October 1906)

2200-495: The shore of the lake, with interchange to both main line and mountain railways at various points. Under separate management, the Autofähre Beckenried-Gersau provides a car ferry service between Beckenried , on the south bank of the lake, and Gersau on the north. Cargo barges , to a local design known as Nauen , are still used on the lake. Some have been converted for use as party boats. Other barges are used by

2250-427: The tables in the staff canteen had a tablecloth on it. He was given to understand that the table with the cloth on it was set aside for senior staff, whereupon he seized one end and pulled the cloth, together with the contents of the table, onto the floor. Although he did business in many countries across two continents, Josef Bucher never bothered to master foreign languages. Instructions were habitually delivered in

2300-405: The town of Stans , thus forming an island of the Bürgenstock. The west end of the main branch of the lake, whence a comparatively shallow bay extends to the town of Lucerne, is intersected obliquely by a deep trench whose south-west end is occupied by the branch called Alpnachersee , while the north-east branch forms the long arm of Küssnacht , Küssnachtersee . These both lie in the direct line of

2350-598: The water and wind conditions. The lake is accessible from boat and yacht harbors, to lake resorts and pools (e.g. the Lido pool in Lucerne, built in 1929 by Arnold Berger). Therefore, the lake can be easily accessible from both shores. The See-Club Luzern was founded in 1881, which is now Switzerland's largest rowing club, as well as the Reuss Luzern rowing club (Ruderclub Reuss Luzern) in 1904. The Lucerne Yacht Club (Yachtclub Luzern) has existed since 1941 and has been running since 1966

2400-409: Was Swiss business magnate, politician and patron who built his wealth in hotels and railroads. Bucher established the Bürgenstock hotel complex and was the owner and patron of Europe's largest hotel company in the 19th century. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated at 14 million Swiss Francs (equal to about 160 million Swiss Francs in 2023). Between 1886 and 1896, Bucher served as

2450-557: Was established in 1980 and the Hergiswil Water Sports Club (Wassersportclub Hergiswil) in 1986. SchweizMobil has created a canoe tour across Lake Lucerne between Brunnen and Gersau. Due to the wind in the Reuss Valley, the southern part of Lake Uri between the campground at Gruonbachstrand in Flüelen and Isleten is a center of windsurfing. There are about ten places where you can dive without a boat in Lake Lucerne. The water

2500-472: Was on Bucher's personal initiative that "Bucher & Durrer" constructed the Stansstad–Stans electric tramline , connecting the paddle-steamer quay at the southwestern end of Lake Lucerne with the base station for the Stanserhorn funicular railway , which was also constructed by Bucher's firm. The railway opened in 1893 and attracted much interest due to its technical innovations, notably in respect of

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