ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN  DAY 46/219: LUCERNE TO RHINE VALLEY, GERMANY

 "26/1/1981

Lucerne is in central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of the country, the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the district of the same name.

Owing to its location on the shores of Lake Lucerne and its outflow, the river Reuss, within sight of the mounts Pilatus and Rigi in the Swiss Alps, Lucerne has long been a destination for tourists. One of the city's famous landmarks is the Chapel Bridge (German: Kapellbrücke), a covered wooden footbridge first erected in the 14th century spanning the river Reuss diagonally in Lucerne. Named after the nearby St. Peter's Chapel, the bridge is unique in containing a number of interior paintings dating back to the 17th century.

The Kapellbrücke is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, as well as the world's oldest surviving truss bridge. It serves as the city's symbol and as one of Switzerland's main tourist attractions.

Part of the bridge complex is the octagonal 34.5 m tall Wasserturm, ("water tower") in the sense of 'tower standing in the water.' The tower pre-dated the bridge by about 30 years. Over the centuries, the tower has been used as a prison, torture chamber, municipal archive and local treasury. 

The bridge itself was originally built c.1365 as part of Lucerne's fortifications. It linked the old town on the right bank of the Reuss to the new town on the left bank, securing the town from attack from the south (i.e. from the lake). The bridge was initially over 270 metres long, although numerous shortenings over the years and river bank replenishments mean the bridge now totals only 204 metres long. It is the oldest surviving truss bridge in the world, consisting of strutted and triangulated trusses of moderate span, supported on piled trestles.

The Rhine is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube), at about 1,230 km, has its sources in Switzerland, and flows nortH through Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The river begins in the south-eastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein and Swiss-Austrian borders, flows into Lake Constance (Bodensee) where it forms the Swiss-German border, forms the Franco-German border, flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands, and eventually empties into the North Sea.

The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and has been a vital navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. Its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire is supported by the many castles and fortifications built along it, which were tollways. The prevalence of castles and tollways along the Rhine and Danube, ultimately led to the formation of International Law and, in turn, the European Union.

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