No visit to Luzern is complete without visiting the Lion Monument (German: Löwendenkmal), a rock relief designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen and hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
The monument is a 15 minute walk from the train station and definitely worth the trip. I had visited many times when we lived in Rotkreuz and would often take visting guests, and seeing it now many years later reaffirmed for me the words of Mark Twain who praised the sculpture of the mortally-wounded lion as “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”
Recent Comments