LEUK STADT - Jan-Eric Osterlund

*The summer palace of the Bishops of Sion. at Leuk Stadt. Leuk Stadt is on the hills overlooking the Rhone Valley. You can see the river in the background*

Jennifer and I came to Leuk Stadt by a coincidence. We were crossing the Bernese Alps from Kandersteg. We wanted to see the beautiful Oeschinensee at about 1,500 metres altitude and surrounded by a stunning Alpine scenery. But the weather gods were not on our side that morning. We took the funicular up into the mountains and found that we were totally enclosed in deep and thick clouds. We couldn’t see more than 20 metres ahead of us. So, we had hot chocolate and cappuccino at the top of the funicular and then tuned back down again.

At Kandersteg the road ends. We drove aboard a railway wagon and were taken through a tunnel crossing the Bernese Alps and came out on the souths side, at the Rhône valley in the canton of Valais. And here the weather had changed completely. See the photos from Kandersteg north of the Alps and the Rhône valley south of the Alps.

Driving in the valley with some extra time on our side we spotted an interesting castle that we decided to explore a little further. And that led us to Leuk Stadt, a very charming hillside village of around 3,000 inhabitants surrounded by vineyards. Leuk was important in an earlier time due to its hillside location controlling the traffic in the valley below. it became specially important in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. In one of my photos, you can see the Patrician houses in the square heralding from that time.

*Climbing up from Thunersee towards Kandersteg the Alps were covered in thick clouds and it was raining heavily*

*We drove our car on board a railway carriage. The railway went for the most part through a tunnel but the first part was alongside the mountains and when the clouds parted we spotted this waterfall*

The “castle” we saw were actually two separate buildings not far from each other. The big tower was erected in the 13^th C as the official residence of the local representative of the sovereign, the Biship of Sion. It now serves as the City Hall. Beside it was Leuk Schloss, which began as a Romanesque tower from 11^th C with a dwelling attached. Later it became the summer palace for the Bishop of Sion. The castle tower has now a modern glass cupola at its top, which, with my seafaring background. I immediately associated with a lighthouse (see the top image).

*The Town Hall among the vineyards. The town itself is on the slopes above this castle-like building*

*St Stephen’s Church with its Romanesque tower.*

But the real attraction of the town was a stroll through the old medieval alleyways and lanes. As soon as you stepped beyond the town centre you entered another world, where small farmhouses and cottages bordered the cobblestoned walkways. And the contrast between this world and the Patrician houses surrounding the square, where we had our lunch, couldn’t have been greater.