Lucerne,20.04.2018

Exhibition commemorating Queen Victoria's stay in Switzerland in1868 opens

Expatriate subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, and others, will be delighted to know that an exhibition commemorating the 150th anniversary of her great-great-grandmother’s visit to Switzerland in 1868 opened at the Historische Museum in Lucerne last month and continues until Saturday 16 September.

Queen Victoria, then “the most powerful woman in the world” spent five weeks in Switzerland that year.
At the time, the monarch had very much withdrawn from public life after the loss of her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in December of 1862.

While the queen travelled only privately and with a small retinue, it was mentioned that half of Europe knew of her journey. It was actually on 7 August that year that Victoria arrived by train in Lucerne, with police in full dress uniform having difficulty keeping the interested public at bay. She was then taken in a four-in-hand carriage with outriders to the Pension Wallis on the Gütsch (the hillside to the south with views overlooking the city) where she spent a number of weeks before returning to England on 9 September.

Every day the Queen would go on day-trips to the surrounding area, for example to Küssnacht, to the Rigi and further afield to the Furka area and the Rhône glacier. In fact it was recorded she even went up the Pilatus on her own pony. She often went incognito on visits to the city itself and had the Winkelried Steamship at her disposal during the whole period of her visit, should she want to go out on the lake.

It was mentioned, too, how Queen Victoria’s visit to the city had a long-lasting positive effect on it, a new steamship being named after her in 1870 (though unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 1942). For the following ten years British tourists were among the most loyal visitors to the region.

Her Imperial Majesty went on to reign for a further 33 years, her son Edward VII succeeding her on 22 January 1901.

The Historische Museum of Lucerne is at number 24 Pfistergasse.