Curious Traveler

- From feudal lords to Swiss nobility, with influences that are French, and German, and Italian, Switzerland's mighty castles are not only beautiful, but they also tell the history of this curious country.

(uptempo cheery music) (uptempo cheery music continues) "Curious Traveler" is made possible by the following.

(train whooshing) (alarm dinging) (uptempo bright music) (bright music) What do you get when you combine the legends of medieval knights, some counts and countesses, a bear, a crane, a poet, and some seriously good fromage all set against the backdrop of the majestic Swiss Alps?

Today, we are taking you to get curious about Switzerland's most beautiful castles.

(bright music continues) The history of Switzerland's castles is the history of Switzerland itself.

Once a collection of individual duchies and kingdoms, later, a confederacy full of feuding families and a whole lot of lovely legends and ingeniously-designed architecture.

To explore all this curious history, we're visiting three of these history-making and dreamy fairytale castles.

Gruyeres Castle and its surrounding village, Chillon Castle on Lake Geneva, and Schloss Thun with its wonderful legends.

So here's what I'm curious about in Switzerland's castles.

Who lives at the top of this castle and only comes out once a year?

What does this crane have to do with this fairytale village and this chateau?

Where can you find a secret passageway upstairs and a dungeon downstairs?

Why is there a Swiss chalet cottage inside a medieval castle?

When was this little bear covered up?

And how did the French Revolution help to preserve this fairytale village?

Who, what, where, why, when, and how?

So much to be curious about in Switzerland's castles Our first castle and town is Gruyeres in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, with a curious history that spans eight centuries, was built and rebuilt in three stages, and has one seriously amazing view.

But before we get to all those stages, let's clear something up.

You've probably heard of Gruyere cheese.

And, yes, the cheese is fantastic, but the name Gruyeres actually comes from a curious legend.

Joining us to explain is Filipe Dos Santos, director of Gruyeres Castle.

To begin with, Gruyeres Castle, everybody knows the Gruyere cheese.

I did not know that Gruyeres comes from the word for crane.

- Yes.

- Tell us about the Gruyere family and the symbol and what the crane has to do with all of this.

- Oh, you know, it's a long history.

First of all, there is a legend.

The legend tell us Gruyeres I, who was a great chief, was looking for land to establish with his men.

And passing in the area, one day at the beginning of the night, were red, the sky was redding, and suddenly a white crane, a grue in French, suddenly fly in the sky.

And he decided it was the good sign to establish his men here.

So that's why the crane, the grue, became the emblem of a count.

Also his name, grue, Gruyeres, and it became the name of the castle, the name of the city, of a region.

And after that, also of a cheese, a famous cheese you know.

- A very famous cheese.

You can see I'm hungry.

I'm thinking about cheese already.

And this legend explains the coat of arms of Gruyeres, with that white grue forever flying across his crimson background.

And keep an eye out for this little guy because you will see grue symbols all over the castle and all over town.

He's kind of the medieval mascot around here.

In fact, follow me, I know where to find another grue.

This courtyard is the perfect place to get that feeling of what the castle was like in the very beginning, in the 13th century.

It was all done in a design called the Savoyard square.

And you can see those medieval touches everywhere.

Like look at the stonework here in the arches and, hey look, it's our buddy again, la grue.

As we walk along here and make our way into the castle, you will notice that the ground's a little bumpy here.

This is a very specific style that also lets us know this dates back to the Middle Ages.

(curious music) But once we enter the castle and go up a few floors, we time travel from the 13th to the 16th century when the castle gets some new owners and sees the beginnings of its beautiful makeovers.

From 1554 until 1798, the chateau changes hands once again.

This was the time period of the rulers from Fribourg.

And during that time, 50 different bailiffs ruled over the land.

One of the many perks that the bailiffs had was that they got to live here inside the chateau.

And this was the room where they worked.

So of course it's called the Bailiff's Room.

Over here, do you see this tree?

That is the coat of arms from the city's treasurer.

And then over on the other side we have another coat of arms, a symbol of the city's secretary.

And last but not least, taking the most important spot right here over the window, we can see the flag and more symbols of Fribourg.

But with all this work that had to be done, I suspect they had a little fun as well because we have, just around the corner here, a graffiti wall.

And we have all kinds of fun little sketches and people's names from anywhere from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

I have a favorite though.

If you come look really closely here, we have la grue!

Of course, the symbol of the town.

(bright music) I told you that sneaky grue pops up everywhere.

Here he is again on a shield above a fireplace.

And here at the very top of this painting, overlooking the battle below.

(bright music continues) Other beautiful rooms in the castle are this tiny little private chapel, the Medallion Room with its delicately painted ceiling and elegant tapestries and framed paintings.

And there are heraldic stained-glass windows throughout with stunning views of the mountains outside just peeking through.

Which brings us to my favorite part of the castle, these gardens, which were laid out in this spot in the year 1620.

The next stage in the history of the chateau happens in 1849 when a wealthy family from Geneva named Bovy purchases the chateau in an auction.

And that family consisted of three brothers that were all artists.

So they turned their chateau into an artistic utopia of sorts, inviting all their artsy friends to come here and paint and create.

Sometimes they would do their painting inside the castle, other times out here in this beautiful garden all done up in the jardin a la francaise style.

And as you look around here with all these beautiful flowers, and of course the Alps beyond, it is no surprise where they got their inspirations from.

(bright music) Ah, what could be better?

I know!

How about a fairytale village just down the hill from the castle?

Okay, here we go.

As the castle expanded over the centuries, so did the lovely village which is now the town of Gruyeres.

To tell us all about her beloved Gruyeres is the former vice mayor of the city, Monique Durussel.

And this is Satou Dosso from the Gruyeres tourism office who has generously offered to translate for us.

All right, let's get to the charm of the village because we said this looks like a Disney fairytale.

(Monique speaking in French) - Beautiful.

(Monique speaking in French) - I understood Middle Ages, Germany, Italy, and poor, I think.

There, that's the highlights.

No, I'm teasing.

So when that road was built around the town, there was no longer a road to the town.

So all the merchants and the traders and their money skipped right by Gruyeres.

And there was something else that led to the decline of this darling town, the French Revolution.

- They had no money anymore because the cheese production stopped.

Especially because they were selling to France and so they get very poor.

- [Christine] But the lack of funds had a silver lining.

This fairytale medieval village was preserved.

- They had no money to rebuild or change the city.

So that's why it stayed in that way.

So that's really the original state of the town - That's ringing a bell in, it was either Bruges or Ghent in Belgium.

They said the reason why their medieval town stayed intact was they didn't have any money.

- Yeah, exactly.

- To tear it down and do something more modern.

That's a good thing, sometimes.

That's a very good thing.

That's a very good thing.

So that's why, to this day, you can roam these beautifully cobbled streets, feel like Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" at this fountain.

Imagine that the butchers, the bakers, and the candlestick makers all had their shops here, and still be surrounded by these medieval walls with symbols of the city.

This Wilden Mann, and, of course, good old grue greeting you over the entrance.

And all this preciousness is protected by something else.

Only a small number of people are allowed to live in the village.

(Monique speaking in French) - Max 100.

- Do you have room for 101?

- Good.

- You can put me to work.

I don't mind.

I'll sell cheese door to door.

It'll be fine.

It'll be fine.

(bright music) Our next curious castle takes us to the edge of Lake Geneva to a chateau that looks like it is floating on the water.

In the 12th century, the powerful Counts of Savoy were looking for the perfect spot to control the passage between Northern Europe and Southern Europe.

And they found that spot right here on the eastern shores of Lake Geneva.

What they found was a rocky outcrop, almost like its own little island.

And, in an ancient language, rocky outcrop is Chillon.

So they built a mighty castle here, and you wanna guess what they named that castle?

Chateau de Chillon.

Mighty and magical Chateau de Chillon.

And just like Chateau Gruyeres, its history is marked by three stages.

As soon as you enter across the castle gates, you step back in time to the chateau's earliest foundations.

This courtyard is the perfect place to experience more than 500 years of history, all in one place.

The first stop, if you look over here and you see all that rugged stone and that big archway there, that is the original entrance to the medieval castle.

Well, not really the first entrance.

First, you had to make it over the drawbridge and through this entrance.

But let's be honest here, what you really wanna know about is this building here.

Looks a little out of place, right?

Kind of looks like a fairytale cottage plunked down in the middle of a medieval stone castle.

Why in the world is that there?

Well, this comes from the Bernese Period in the 16th century and this style was actually pretty typical for Swiss farmhouses.

My favorite part are these little dormer windows that stick out all, dotted with those pretty pink flowers.

But whether or not Hansel and Gretel or maybe Rapunzel lived there on the top floor in the fairytale cottage, we may never know.

(stately orchestral music) And inside the castle, there's grand room after grand room, including three great halls used for dining, entertaining, and sometimes for work too.

And then there is St. George's Chapel, considered the jewel in Chillon's crown.

And it was the private chapel of the Counts and the Dukes of Savoy.

Miraculously, its 14th-century paintings survived the Reformation.

(stately orchestral music continues) This was the Coat of Arms Hall used for ceremonies.

And the basement of the chateau was famously used as a prison and dungeon.

You can see it was carved right out of the rock here.

But I prefer the rosier sections of the castle.

So to find out more about the history of Chillon, we chat with one of its former residents, Mary, the Duchess of Savoy.

Darn it.

I knew I should have worn my 15th-century dress too.

I really wanna know about the hat.

What about the shape of the hat?

- Oh, this hat.

Of course.

I am married woman, so I have to hide my long hair because they're only for my husband.

- Ah, that explains it, that explains it.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

Mary belonged to the House of Savoy, which was a royal dynasty with properties across the Holy Roman Empire, including France and Italy.

- And then they came to the French-spoken part of Switzerland and built essentially around the Lake of Geneva castles, but as well inside the country too.

They had a count, a duke, even an antipope.

- [Christine] An anti what?

An antipope.

An antipope was a European leader who challenged the power of the actual pope for political and religious reasons.

These antipopes were voted in by their own people and truly saw themselves as the actual pope.

But history calls them antipopes.

There were at least 37 antipopes between the 3rd and the 15th centuries.

Want to guess who the last one was?

Amadeus III, Mary's husband who owned Chateau de Chillon.

How curious.

But the Catholic Savoys wouldn't last much longer here at Chillon because, in 1536, the leaders from the Canton of Bern, known as the Bernese, take over.

- It was a big change for people living here because the Bernese, they were Protestant.

So Savoy are Catholic.

- Big difference.

- Bernese Protestant.

Laws changed, religion changed.

- [Christine] And the castle decor changed.

- They were painting all the walls in white to hide whatever was Savoyan.

It was Catholic.

They were Protestant.

They were hanging in lower ceilings because, as you have maybe seen crossing all those rooms, we have very high ceilings and you lose all the heat.

And the Bernese wanted to keep it inside.

- [Christine] Which brings us to the final rulers of the castle, the Vaudois, the people from the Canton of Vaud which is the Canton that the castle is in.

- The Vaudois took out the ceilings because they found lovely ceilings below the lower ones.

And so that was all taken out.

And we have, again, a lovely Middle Age room.

- So to summarize, the House of Savoy made Chateau Chillon a royal residence and decorated it with Catholic symbols everywhere.

Then the Protestant Bernese covered everything up, only to have the Vaudois uncover it all again.

(stately orchestral music) Before we leave, there's one more room I want to show you.

And it's a curious one.

This is the Bernese Bedroom, and it's got all the comforts you might expect from the Renaissance period.

This beautiful four-poster bed with a nice mattress here.

Although, I have to be honest, it's not quite Tempur-Pedic.

Over here, of course, we didn't have indoor plumbing but they got pretty darn close.

I love this little invention here.

They just had to fill the cistern with water.

And you've got a cute little faucet right here that goes into your sink just to freshen up first thing in the morning.

But not every morning was a leisurely one around here.

Remember, anytime one lives in a castle, you always have the threat of the bad guys possibly coming from afar on horseback.

But don't worry, they thought about that too.

So just behind the bedroom, as you can see here, there's the secret tunnel.

They could walk right through here.

Hopefully, if you're the right height or you crouch down a little bit, then you open this door and then you can make your way to safety.

They can either go down these stairs here or, look, there's another little narrow door here.

And once you open that, it actually takes you outside where there's another entire labyrinth of balconies and walkways to get you through other doors.

What a way to wake up!

(bright music) For our final curious castle, we travel now into the German-speaking region of Switzerland near Bern.

And it was the founder of Bern, Berchtold V, who built this castle and named it Schloss Thun.

Isn't it impressive?

You can see those towers and those turrets reaching up towards the sky.

And this castle has everything, from those thick medieval walls, to a big cellar below, and a huge Knights' Hall right at the top.

It has everything a castle could possibly need, except a place for Berchtold to sleep.

And that's because Berchtold V never actually lived here.

But that's just the beginning of the curiosities to be found here.

To tell us all about it is Schloss Thun museum director, Yvonne Wirth.

- It was Berchtold V who started it all here.

Very interesting story because he didn't build it to live here, but only for representation.

So what he did, he built this very large staircase up here.

And behind these walls, there was only one room, only one big hall.

We call it today the Knights' Hall.

It was built in 1200, and we don't even know if he has ever been here.

So it's just been for- - That's hilarious.

It was really, it was just for show.

He wanted the outside to look grand, so he looked very impressive.

And there was one room on the inside to take a nap in.

- Yeah.

(bright music) - And show off it did.

This magical-looking castle perched high on a hill could be seen for miles around, a testament to Berchtold V's power, putting his stamp on his part of the country.

(bright music continues) Many, many centuries later, the castle is used as a prison.

And then in 1888 it becomes a museum.

Actually, the prison years and the museum years overlapped a bit.

And that brings us to the prison warden who lived here in the castle who had to take on a whole new job.

So in 1888, he was still in charge of the prison and, hey, somebody had to take the tickets to the museum.

- Yeah.

- So that was him as well.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- I think that's so funny.

- Yeah.

- So he's like, okay, here ma'am.

Watch your head.

Just a second.

I have to go check on the prisoners.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- And the first tourists, we still have some letters from them.

And they tell us the story of, oh, it was a bit weird.

There were prisoners looking at me and they were a bit rude and- - Really?

- But the view up there was really nice, but the prisoners were a bit strange.

- So when tourists in the 1800s were visiting inside, the prisoners could see them?

- At the very beginning.

- Were they looking through their grate?

- At the very beginning.

- Oh, that's really weird.

- Yeah.

- That's really weird.

Okay, so no creepy prisoners to stare at you these days.

So let's head inside.

(bright music) First up, that grand hall.

This is the great hall.

This was the one and only room inside the castle that Berchtold V had built in his hey-look-at-me castle.

It is 45 feet high and it is enormous!

Today, still one of the best-preserved ceremonial halls from the Middle Ages in all of Europe.

Just look at the size of the fireplace!

It's big enough to cook a buffalo.

As we look around the walls here, you can see most of them have been plastered over for preservation purposes over the years, except for the northeast corner.

If you look closely here, you can actually see the individual stones that were used to help build the original castle.

Of course, today, guarded by a couple of knights.

Thanks, guys.

My favorite part of the great hall though, look up, up, up, and we have 26 wooden beams crossing across the ceiling.

These wooden beams and portions of this castle are older than Switzerland itself.

(bright music) Today, the museum is a treasure trove of medieval history.

This floor has stunning tapestries, like this one with symbols of the Four Evangelists and a bonus unicorn for good measure.

And this, the Burgundian heraldic tapestry.

When Switzerland defeated the Burgundians in 1476, they took quite the treasure with them, including this amazing work of art.

And then there is this floor with its walls decorated with beautiful and curious coats of arms.

(bright music) About 200 years after the castle is built, Thun Castle becomes the residence and office for Thun's mayors.

And this room celebrates 800 years of those mayors with their coats of arms.

Now, because Thun is within the Canton of Bern, very early on, we start to see the symbol of Bern with the bear.

(bright music) Each coat of arms, of course, has symbols of the family, the knight's helmet symbolizing the family status from nobility to royalty.

Often a symbol of the hometown is displayed, like this fountain, which Swiss towns are famous for.

And here we have an open hand symbolizing an oath.

And finally back to that little bear of Bern, here hidden behind a curtain.

Why?

Well, because from 1798 to 1803, the French invaded Switzerland, established the Helvetic Republic, and didn't allow any Bernese mayors to rule over this region.

All that history symbolized in a little hidden bear.

(bright music continues) Other areas of the castle include stunning views from the tower, treasured pieces of sculpture and decoration from over the centuries.

And there's one more spot with lots of steps but I promise it's worth the climb.

(bright music continues) As beautiful as the castle was, in 1434, local authorities said, hey, we want to make Schloss Thun even bigger and even taller.

So they built this, a four-story-high attic and rooftop.

It stretches a full 65 feet up above that original 1200 rooftop.

And as you can see, all that wood there, not one single nail.

It is so beautiful up here.

It actually looks a bit like a cathedral.

It is gorgeous.

I would actually live here.

But you know what?

You can't live here because somebody already does.

Do you wanna meet him?

Follow me.

(bright music) Okay, this is where the resident of the attic lives.

It looks a little small, but it's perfect for him.

I promise.

This is my friend named the Fulehung.

How's it going buddy?

The Fulehung is 50% dog, 50% devil, and 100% creepy.

According to legend, he comes down into the town of Thun on a Monday and he brings with him a pig's bladder and a wooden stick.

Then he slaps everybody with them and then gives them candy, of course, because that's totally normal.

Now, as frightening as he is, don't worry too much because he only comes down to the town once a year.

So not time for you to come out yet, buddy.

And the Fulehung is actually celebrated with an annual festival every September, so mark your calendars to either make it here to Thun or to make sure you are not here in Thun when the Fulehung visits.

On that note, I think that's our cue to wrap up our visit in lovely Schloss Thun and an even lovelier Switzerland.

(bright music) So, from a little white crane who flew across a red sky, to a grand hall full of colorful symbols of power, to a French garden which inspired great art with a darling village to match, onto another grand chateau seemingly floating on its lake, lived in by noble families and antipope and Swiss royalty who liked to run through secret passageway.

Hopefully if you're the right height.

To a mighty statement of Bernese power with knights standing guard, shields hanging proudly, a guard working double duty, all topped off by a hopefully friendly furry mascot snoozing in its attic.

(door creaks) Switzerland's mighty, magical, and magnifique castles have so much to be curious about.

(bright music continues) Thank you for joining us on our educational journey and hopefully now you're even more curious about the who, what, where, why, when, and hows of Switzerland's curious and beautiful castles.

As they say here, a la prochaine.

All right, can you show everybody how you do the light dance?

Let's do this.

Do the light dance.

Okay, ready?

(footsteps pattering) And I swear we're working.

Okay.

"Curious Traveler" is made possible by the following.

(train whooshing) (gentle music) (bright music) Still curious?

Go to www.curioustravelertv.com and follow us on Facebook @CuriousTravelerTV, on Twitter @CuriousTravTV, and on Instagram @CuriousTravelerTV.

(bright music) (bright music)