The two medieval covered wooden bridges that connect the old and new parts of town have always been the focal points of Lucerne. The Chapel, Bridge at the end of the lake bends at an angle over the Reuss and is named after St Peter’s Chapel on the right bank. It was built shortly after the Water Tower (approximately 1300) and is connected by a footbridge. The sturdy octagonal tower, Lucerne’s landmark, served as an archive, a place to store captured loot, as treasury, jail and even torture chamber. The Chapel Bridge has been called the largest model in the world, which isn’t too far off. During the tourist season, almost every minute there’s a camera snapping a photograph of Lucerne’s grand old lady. In a way, the bridge has come to symbolise Lucerne’s beauty. And then the fire took place. No one will ever forget the shock caused by the fire on August 18, 1993. It was a symbol of a whole country, that had burnt down. Given this historical context, one can well understand the huge birthday party that takes place on the morning of April 14. The conductor of the grand ceremony is the affable Kurt Illi, managing director of the Lucerne Tourist Promotion Board who has been the man behind this ambitious restoration, helped by his deputy, Beat Bachler, Pierre Freimuller, public relations director of Swiss Air, and Hans Peter Frank, public relations director of the Swiss National Tourist Board. Ever been to the opening of a bridge? Me neither. But this is no ordinary bridge, and this isn’t an ordinary party. At 9 am in the morning, 30 journalists from across the world and lots of Swiss citizens are gathered at Lucerne’s town hall. American Express offers everyone white wine, the Mayor makes a speech, and then we wend our way in a procession through the town’s beautiful streets to the soon-to-be-baptised bridge. At precisely ten, speedboats below the bridge vroom into life, emitting smoke. The Chapel Brige is shrouded in white, symbolising life in primitive times when the first arrivals attempted to cross the raging river Reuss. Cosmic music fill the valley and fireworks trace patterns across the sky. The-Pilatus dragon flies across the Reuss and erupts into flames. If you had a piece of Emmental cheese in your mouth, you would probably have choked on it, for suddenly, from over the mountaintops, into the valley through the fog, zooms a Swiss Air Airbus 310 to signify our flight into modern times. If this does not suitably impress you nothing will, for the plane has flown directly from Zurich airport; circled endlessly to come in at exactly 15 minutes past 10s (only ten seconds late) in a scripted but never rehearse choreography.

Now, of course, everything erupts in a riot of colour, music and dance. Lucerne’s churchbells start pealing, folk orchestras follow cavorting dancers, brass brands follow mime artists, rock musicians follow…A ballerina pirouettes on a wooden plank on the lake, harp players drift by on a boat, rock musicians set phallic symbols on fire. A helicopter buzzes overhead showering Lucerne with flowers; free wine is being distributed in the streets (the sausages you have to pay for) and a carnival spirit pervades from, morning to well past midnight. ‘The Dying Lion of Lucerne’ is one of the world’s most famous, monuments. It was hewn out of natural rock in memory of the heroic death of the Swiss mercenaries at the Tuileries in 1792. Gobe-trotter Mark Twain described the Lion as “the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world.”