The Museggmauer Wall or Musegg Wall was built to protect the City of Lucerne in 1386 from invaders. The wall is fairly high but narrow and contains 9 towers, one of which is a clock tower overlooking Lucerne. Since the Wall is on the hillside overlooking the City, the first order of business is to make the climb to the wall. We chose some steps through a narrow alley.
 |
| It's a long set of steps to the top |
 |
| And more steps |
 |
| Looking back reveals how high we've climbed |
There are 9 towers along the wall, 3 of them are open to the public to aceess the tope of the wall. The Schirmerturm tower, Zytturm tower and Mannliturm tower contain narrow dark wooden stairways for the adventurous. The Zytturm tower is a treat since it contains a clock with the clock mechanism and pendulum visible by climbing inside the dark tower.
 |
| Map of the Nine towers |
As we reached the top of the stairs and a short climb uphill we could see the first of the towers, "Schirmerturm" tower. This is the tower we climbed to get up on the wall.
 |
| "Schirmerturm" tower from below |
The climb inside the tower is very dark and steep on the original wood steps. The only light is the light coming from either the opening at the bottom or the opening at the top of the tower. Eventually we reached the opening at the top of the tower which led onto a narrow walkway along the top of the wall. One one side of the walkway is the wall itself and on the other a very low railing probably put there to keep tourists from falling although it barely serves this purpose. We met one Australian couple who was not keen on the walkway. I love heights so I thought it was fine (as long as you stay away from the low railing).
 |
| The wall is very narrow, the railing low and the height high |
Once on the walkway we were treated to a view overlooking the entire city of Lucerne.
 |
| The rail station arch can be seen from the wall |
 |
| View of Lucerne below from the wall |
 |
| The Clock Tower, next stop on the wall |
We proceeded down the narrow walkway to the next tower which to me is the most fascinating of the 9, the Zytturm tower. This being Switzerland of course there is a clock on this tower. It was an interesting climb up into the clock mechanism.
 |
| The working clock mechanism inside the tower driven by a pendulum |
The Swiss are obsessed by time. You will never see a Swiss clock not working or displaying the wrong time. Here inside an 800 year old clock timer I found how truly obsessed the Swiss are. The 30 foot pendulum swung to and fro inside the tower avancing the gears and ultimately the hands on the clock face which can be seen from anywhere in Lucerne. While sitting inside the dark tower observing the pendulum (yes I know I'm weird) I saw a small red LED at the bottom of the pendulum and a huge electromagnet. After a while the pendulum stopped and was momentarily held in position against the electromagnet. What the Swiss are doing here is compensating for inaccuracy inherent in the mechanical mechanism. By using an embedded computer board and the LED they are able to measure the pendulum timing and slow it down if necessary to synch it with the real time. Clever! This is something they didn't have in 1386 when the wall was built.
 |
| LED used to measure pendulum swing and electromagnet used to slow the pendulum down |
 |
| View from the non city side of the wall |
Above is a view of the wall and one tower from the side of the all that would be viewed by a potential invader.
The wall ends at the river terminated by this lovely turret building with the road passing through. A traffic signal regulates the direction of the one lane that passes through the turret.
 |
| One traffic lane turret terminating the Museggmauer Wall |
