Description of the attraction
The unusual park-museum Gletchergarden, which means "Glacial Garden", has been operating in Lucerne since the 19th century. It is very easy to find it: it is located next to the famous monument "The Dying Lion", dedicated to the soldiers who died for the French kings - Charles IX and Louis XVI. This memorial is one of the symbols of Lucerne.
Glacier Park Museum is a park that houses the former residence of the Amrein family. This house was rebuilt for the needs of the museum.
The idea for the museum came from Joseph Wilhelm Amrein-Troller, when he was in charge of the construction of a wine cellar and accidentally discovered the remains of a prehistoric glacier. Excavations at this site continued until 1876. All finds are now kept in the Glacier Museum. This is an extensive collection of fossils dating back 20 million years. In those days, there was a tropical sea on the site of Lucerne. Most of the stones with imprints of ancient insects, leaves of no longer existing plants were found in glaciers. Also in the park you can see gigantic glacial cauldrons - deep depressions with steep edges, which were formed due to the descent of the glacier.
In addition, the museum displays reduced copies of houses and various buildings typical for different regions of Switzerland; a reconstruction of the battle between Russian and French troops in 1799, in which many tin soldiers were used; volumetric map of the Alps, compiled by the scientist L. Pfeifer.
Another attraction of the park-museum is the Alhambra - a mirror labyrinth in the Moorish style, created at the end of the 19th century for the national exhibition in Geneva and transported to Lucerne in 1899.
