Perhaps the most unusual attraction in Lucerne is the enormous panoramic painting and sculpture depicting the escape of 87,000 members of the French army to Switzerland during the Franco-Prussian War in the winter of 1871.
The circular painting and three-dimensional foreground are the work of Edouard Castres, who traveled with the army as a Red Cross worker. Completed in 1881, the work is 112 meters long and 10 meters high and considered one of the finest examples of panoramic art.
