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Identifying a church by a lake and a railway line, claimed to be in the Canton of Lucerne

Travel Asked by Pere on October 24, 2021

I’m trying to identify this place:

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According to metadata of two of the images they are taken in the Canton of Lucerne, and some other photographs from the same author are claimed or positively identified as having been taken in Switzerland, so I would say that it’s likely that the image is from Switzerland, although I would take with a grain of salt the claim that it is from the Canton of Lucerne.

The date is given as between 1880 and 1926 but I think that’s only based on the lifespan of the photographer (1858-1926). Furthermore, judging by the aspect of clock, it seems that at least one image was taken on a different date.

Although a rail line runs by the northern banks of the Vierwaldstättersee, I haven’t been able to find at the same place a two tracked railway – or a station -, a lake and that mountain, to look for the church there. Neither have I found the church among images of churches in the Canton of Lucerne.

The images are in Wikimedia Commons here, here and here or in its original location here, here and here.

One Answer

Alte Kirche St. Georg und Nikolaus, Flüelen, Canton of Uri, Switzerland

enter image description here (from Wikimedia Commons)

Found by noting the time & direction of shadows, inferring that the view was facing north, looking for lakeshores in Switzerland that run roughly north-south with the lake on the west (there are not a lot of them) and with railroad track running near the shore, and a healthy dose of dumb luck. Note that the lake is in fact Lake Lucerne, but the town is not in the Canton of Lucerne.

It is difficult to recreate the first view on Google Maps, but here is a Street View location showing both the church and the promontory in the distance:

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And here it is in the mid-20th century. The road must have been put in some time in the early 20th century.

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Answered by Michael Seifert on October 24, 2021

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