Lake Aegeri might not be one of the best-known of the many beautiful Swiss Lakes, but its steep valley sides, mainly forested, and its tidy waters’ edge, with the view of high mountains behind, contribute a lot of rural charm to the landscape.
This is my film of a walk along that lake shore from the village of Morgarten to Oberägen, a distance of 4 kms. Along the way we will stop and admire the monument placed here in 1908 as a memorial to the Battle of Morgarten, that took place in 1315 AD. It’s a typical piece of modern Swiss street art, very stylish and much more interesting than just a naturalistic sculpture. A tower in a prominent position shows we have arrived at the Denkmal (memorial).
From the start you can see that this little lake is domesticated rather than wild: people like to get out in small craft of all kinds: little motor boats, two man-kayaks, and even inflatable rubber dinghies can appear anywhere. But it was not always so. They say history is written by the winners, and certainly it was the local men of Schwyz who triumphed on 15 November 1315: they surprised and defeated the apparently superior Habsburg forces on the shores of Lake Ageri. However, now the centre of Switzerland is calm and peaceful; I hope the romantic music I have supplied as a background contributes to that mood.
