Gelfingen, Lucerne
THE LOWDOWN
Heidegg sits above pretty Lake Baldegg in the Seetal valley and, thanks to some very precise tree-ring dating done in 2013, we now know its oldest living quarters date all the way back to 1192 — which makes it the oldest confirmed residential building anywhere in the Canton of Lucerne. Not too shabby for a place most people have never heard of.
ROUND THE CASTLE
It started out as the seat of the noble Lords of Heidegg, who by 1237 had turned it into a proper fortified tower and residence. When that family line died out, it passed to Lucerne’s patrician class — wealthy families who’d made their fortunes the old-fashioned Swiss way: renting out their sons as mercenaries to foreign armies. The last of these, the Pfyffer family, converted the keep into a full Baroque castle tower. Nowadays it’s a ‘living museum’ with audio stories from the last private owners, and it’s genuinely famous for its rose garden, which has been growing on the site for around 300 years, with some varieties so rare you literally can’t find them anywhere else.
THE LITTLE TITBIT
After Lucerne’s brief civil war in 1847 (the Sonderbund War, if you want the fancy name), the castle was auctioned off as state property in 1849 and bought by a local farmer named Josef Heggli — so this one genuinely went from noble family seat, to mercenary money pit, to a farmer’s weekend project, all in the space of about 700 years.
By 1950, the grand days of Schloss Heidegg were fading. The last two sisters of the Pfyffer family, Marie-Louise and Mathilde, still had their magnificent ancestral home, but no longer the fortune needed to maintain it.
They handed the castle to the Canton of Lucerne in return for a lifetime pension and the right to remain. Marie-Louise left for Lucerne, while Mathilde stayed behind, living quietly with her maid high in the old castle.
Their final chapter was surprisingly short. Marie-Louise died in March 1953, and Mathilde followed only three months later. With her death, centuries of private life at Heidegg came to an end, and the old family castle began a new life belonging to the public.
What I liked about this castle is how they have kept many of the rooms as the sisters lived there, with a scarf thrown over a chair a pair of gloves on the couch, so you feel like you’ve gone back in time to visit where they lived, as opposed to going back to a medieval castle. Which I also enjoy but it’s nice to see something different.
