Zug is a favourite
place to visit for its lakeside setting and its colourful and historic Altstadt.
So when intrepid ZIWA chairlady Vreni Riedler announced a day trip there on 20 October 2016 with the Swinging Sixties group, she soon had 50 people sign up. The motley group
convened on the platform of Bahnhof Zug, only to discover that Vreni couldn’t
accompany us this time. But she had arranged for two guides to show us the
sights of the quirky old town, one German-speaking and the other English, a
hearty lunch and then a visit to the bakery where the famous Zuger
Kirschtorten are made. What could be more pleasant?
In the English group,
Marilyn Buchmann first drew our attention to the impressive modern station
building, which sees 35,000 people pass through its platforms daily. American
artist James Turrell designed the colourful lighting which was installed in
2003 and the building also houses several shops and cafes. We also noted the
quirky fountain in the form of a man’s lower torso, which was dreamed up by
Russian designers. On our way to the lake of Zug, we passed the Reform Church,
founded in 1906 in the Romanesque style, and were reminded that Canton Zug is a
Catholic canton. 
The beautiful Zugersee lakeside
is known to locals as ‘catastrophe bay’ due to earlier flooding, when on 5 July in 1887, water
seeped under the new road causing the death of 11 people: the
casualties were mainly Austrian workers. Regular visitors to Zug with ZIWA’s
Discovering Switzerland trips will already know that Zug was no stranger to
flooding – in 1435, heavy snow was followed by floods which caused the collapse of a
row of lakeside houses. We then ambled past the Cantonal government building
dating from 1869, which housed Franco-Prussian war refugees in 1871.
In the central
Landsgemeindeplatz we were transported back to earlier centuries when men and
boys of 14 gathered here to vote until 1872; however, Swiss women only received
the vote as late as 1971. We also heard that the aviary here is home to birds
which have been confiscated, including the colourful scarlet ibis, snowy owls
and avocets. The Schiff restaurant achieved recent notoriety by the actions of
some local politicians, and the restaurant Kaiben Thurm was formerly a prison.
The Rathaus with its beautiful medieval interior was rebuilt after river
flooding in 1509, and supplied the famous Swiss Guard which serve the Pope in
Vatican City: the Bishop of Lausanne once served as Pope. 
It’s hard to imagine now
that carriages were once driven through the narrow streets of Zug Altstadt and
had to pay duty. Zug’s oldest building, a baroque manor house, is now an art
gallery, but is sadly about to be rebuilt as apartments. The adjacent yellow
building dates back to the 1390s. Narrow
alleys such as Schiessigässli and Saumweg are now colourful footpaths which had
to be wide enough for a pig to run along.
In the heart of the
Altstadt, we saw the Greth Schell fountain – the old woman is a famous
carnival figure who chased her husband around the inns and carried him home
on her back. She was named for Margaret Schell, who taught both girls and boys
in the same class, and sang at funerals. Fountains were once important for washing
as well as providing drinking water. We passed the Zur alten Farb, an old
dyeing factory, the Proviserhus, a bath-house and later school, and the nearby
15th century Chapel of Our Lady. On this trip we didn’t have time to enter the
landmark Zytturm but we studied the face of the astronomical clock which shows the
signs of the zodiac, phases of the moon and Roman gods alongside the crests of
the first eight Swiss cantons.
By this time, everyone
was ready for a delicious lunch in the traditional restaurant Aklin.
In the afternoon, we
again divided into two groups for tours of the Treichler bakery and shop; our
English-speaking guide was Werner Weber, who mentioned that the bakery produces
over one million of the liqueur-soaked cakes per year. After donning our chic
white coats and hats, we saw master patissier Urs assemble one of the pre-baked
sponges into a finished torte by cutting, icing, filling and finishing, and
then packing the cake for despatch to destinations in western Europe. We learnt
that the company obtains the cherry liqueur from Etter, who source the cherries from
a small number of local farmers. Smaller cherries are preferred and must meet a
high standard; the resulting liquor is 20 percent proof, and the cellar and
museum were redolent of alcohol. The Kirsch can be kept in vats for up to two
years, before being ladled into one of the special cakes.
After seeing the
bakery, we crossed over to the cake shop and café at Bundesplatz 3, which features a museum display of
old baking tools. The original Torte formula was devised by Heiri Höhn before
World War I, but the Treichler company bought it in 1915 and has been producing
the medal-winning cake for just over a century.
In 1989, head of the company Jacques Treichler had a fatal accident in
Crete, and his wife took over the business. In 2003, Heini Luzern took over the
business and increased the profile of its successful product which still
retains the Treichler name. There was a queue at the counter to buy one of the
famous Zug products, popular with Audrey Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin and the Pope,
before the group dispersed.
See more about the
Kirschtorte at this link: http://www.treichler-zuger-kirschtorte.ch/
Thank you once again
to chairlady Vreni for another successful day out. I'm sorry you couldn’t share it
with us.
Julia Newton. 25
October 2016.
