TRAVEL LITERATURE
Rigi Kulm and the call of the trumpet
Hotel guest books are a treasure trove for research into early tourism in Switzerland.
Travellers arriving on the Rigi in the 19th century. | Image: W.H. Vormann (1883)
Chaotic hospitality, awful weather, wake-up calls by trumpet and a sensational sunrise – these are the things that British travellers in the 19th century repeatedly reported in their travelogues and in the guest books of the Rigi-Kulm Hotel. They all enjoyed similar experiences. According to Jérémie Magnin from the University of Neuchâtel, this fact was closely linked to an English travel guide that was popular at the time, and which described staying on the Rigi in exactly the same way. Magnin has examined the Hotel’s sixteen visitors’ books as part of a project to digitise all historical Swiss hotel registers.
