Each story is rooted in real local history and landmarks
Retold from the deer's perspective: chased by hounds along the lakeshore, saved by kind Countess Mechthild, then gratefully choosing the castle hill as home. When the deer lays its head in Mechthild's lap, Count Rudolf takes it as a divine sign and builds a castle — and a city is born from an act of mercy.
A child crosses the wooden bridge and at the Heilig Hüsli chapel, slips through time to walk alongside medieval pilgrims heading to Einsiedeln. Along the way, they encounter Bronze Age lake dwellers beneath the water and discover that people have been crossing this narrow point for over 4,000 years.
Each of the 600 rose varieties in Rapperswil holds a memory from the town's history. A child who can 'listen' to roses discovers stories from the castle, the monastery, and the old town — and learns why the City of Roses has been blooming for over a century, with 16,000 bushes painting the hillside in colour.
A child finds a mysterious old painting in the castle and learns about Count Plater, the Polish exiles, and why a small Swiss town became the guardian of a nation's memory. The most heartbreaking discovery: 95% of the collection was lost when it was sent to Warsaw and destroyed in World War II.
A child travels back to 1350 during the siege of Rapperswil, when wealthy citizens handed food through windows to hungry neighbours. Centuries later, the tradition lives on: every Shrove Tuesday at exactly 15:15, sausages, bread, and gingerbread rain from the town hall windows onto cheering children below.
Set in 1962, a child befriends the Knie family as they build their children's zoo in Rapperswil. The child helps care for baby elephant Sahib-Fridolin — the first Asian elephant ever born in Switzerland — and discovers that a circus family's greatest act is not performed under a tent, but in the bond between animals and people.
A child discovers a Roman coin at the lakeshore and is transported to the bustling vicus of Centum Prata, where traders, boatmen, and mysterious Mithras worshippers cross paths at the busiest harbour on the upper lake. The child must return the coin before the archaeologists arrive in the morning.
Each of the castle's three towers holds a secret from a different era: the Counts of Rapperswil founding the castle in 1229, the Habsburgs rebuilding it as a show of power in 1352, and the Polish exiles filling it with a nation's memory in 1870. A child must solve all three riddles to unlock the castle's heart.
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