A pasta counter near the station where the fillings change by the morning.
Bourbaki Panorama
A circle of painted snow that has not stopped falling since 1881.
The Bourbaki Panorama sits on the edge of Lucerne's old town, right next to the Lion Monument. Inside its rotunda hangs a single continuous painting: 112 metres around, ten metres high, completed in 1881 by Edouard Castres with a team of assistants that included a young, still-unknown Ferdinand Hodler.
It shows three days in February 1871, when 87,000 exhausted soldiers of the French Army of the East crossed into Switzerland near Les Verrières and Vallorbe, disarmed and taken in by 188 Swiss communities under the fledgling Red Cross. Wooden viewing platforms blend the painted horizon with staged foreground props, so the line between canvas and floor disappears.
The building dates to 1889, one of the last surviving panorama structures of its kind in Europe. A smaller exhibition downstairs fills in the historical detail. Understanding it takes a full slow turn on the platform, not a glance.