In the glass cabin of the Hammetschwand lift, you ascend 153 meters vertically in less than a minute.
Bürgenstock
A cliff walk above the lake that Audrey Hepburn called home.
The Bürgenstock peninsula rises abruptly from the southern shore of Lake Lucerne, a long ridge of rock and forest that reads, from the water, like a wall. The resort at its summit has operated in various forms since the 1870s. Audrey Hepburn lived here for much of her adult life. The current hotel, rebuilt in 2017, maintains the tradition of understated seclusion.
The Felsenweg (the cliff path) is cut directly into the rock face on the eastern side of the ridge, at around 900 metres, with the lake 500 metres below. It takes about 45 minutes to walk and requires no special equipment, only a head for heights.
The approach is by boat from Lucerne to Kehrsiten, then funicular to the plateau. Each stage of the journey (lake crossing, funicular, cliff walk) adds to the sense that you have arrived somewhere particular.
Usually visited together
More in Lucerne
Painted facades, fountain squares, and bread shops that haven't changed in decades.
A lakeside village where the roses bloom and the ferry arrives on time, always.
Six hundred years of stone, and the whole city laid out below.
A castle above the rooftops, reached by funicular through the trees.