While walking in the city of Lucerne, one of the hard to miss historical buildings is the Church of St. Leodegar which is also commonly known as the Hof Church or Hofkirche. Generally known as Lucerne’s main church, Hof Church is built on a small hill east of the medieval downtown and very near the famous Lion Monument.
Dating as far back as the eighth century, the church can be seen from far because of it’s twin 200m tall towers. Sitting atop each tower are gold balls that contain the building plans of the church and other parish documents. Other than climbing part way up the towers via spiral staircases and ladders, you can also admire rich wrought-iron works on the interior. The white stone walls really showcases the well furnished statuary and altars. My personal favorite is the exquisite hand carved doors.
Hof church had to be rebuilt after a fire in at Easter, 1966 and the current church you see today is of Renaissance style with some Baroque elements. The most famous thing about the Hof Church, however, is their pipe organ. It started coming together in 1648 and kept growing bigger with the capabilities of producing an amazing array of sounds including hail, thunder and lightning! One of the bigger pipes is 10m tall and more than half a meter in diameter! The pipe organ here is one of the largest in Europe and the 2nd largest in Switzerland next to the Engelberg Abbey Church organ. Currently with 5,945 pipes there are even plans to raise 1 million CHF so that the organ can be enlarged further!
The exterior and grounds of the Church are also very pretty. Beautiful courtyard with arcades and flowers. A wonderful place to just sit and chill. I wish I was able to coordinate my time to attend the pipe organ concert while I was there.
