Sierre

The Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) spent his final five years in the Sierre region, living at the Chateau de Muzot, a 13th-century fortified manor house near Veyras. Swiss patron Werner Reinhart purchased the chateau and let Rilke live there rent-free. The chateau lacked gas and electricity; Rilke worked by candlelight. In an extraordinary burst between 2 and 22 February 1922, he completed the Duino Elegies and both parts of the Sonnets to Orpheus. A famous legend tells of Rilke pricking his hand on a rose thorn while gathering flowers for a visitor; his compromised immune system from leukaemia made the wound fatal. He died on 29 December 1926 and was buried in Raron with his self-composed epitaph about a rose.

Sierre is nicknamed the Cite du Soleil (City of the Sun), the sunniest town in Switzerland, enjoying approximately 2,170 hours of sunshine and roughly 300 sunny days per year. The exceptional sunshine results from the Rhone valley's inner-Alpine rain shadow. The municipal coat of arms features a golden sun with a human face and alternating straight and wavy rays on a red field, depicted as early as the Schalbetter map printed by Sebastian Muenster in 1545. The Romans called Sierre 'the town of a hundred hills' -- the distinctive hilly terrain derives from a massive postglacial rock avalanche. On these hills, medieval castles grew up, including the Chateau des Vidomnes (built around 1490) with its distinctive ochre-orange colour and four corner turrets.

The bisses (German: Suonen) are historic irrigation channels unique to Valais, built between the 13th and 20th centuries to divert meltwater to pastures, orchards, and vineyards. Construction was perilous: channels were carved into cliffsides hundreds of metres high using only picks, shovels, timber, and rope. Communities formed consortages (associations of water users) governed by statutes regulating construction, maintenance, and water distribution. At their peak, over 200 bisses totalling approximately 1,800 kilometres operated across Valais. The Bisse de Clavau, built in 1453 by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Sion, runs approximately 8 kilometres and features enormous drystone walls, corbelled structures, overhanging wooden-beam sections, and a short tunnel.

Sierre is the last French-speaking town in the Rhone valley before the language shifts to German. The Raspille stream between Sierre and Salgesch marks the official French-German language border, dividing the Bas-Valais (French-speaking) from the Haut-Valais (German-speaking Walliserdeutsch). The Pfynwald (Bois de Finges), a 10 km2 nature reserve of national importance, historically formed a natural barrier reinforcing the linguistic separation -- the dense forest had a fearsome reputation for harbouring robbers and highwaymen. Remarkably, until the end of the 19th century, Sierre was predominantly German-speaking -- the language border has shifted westward over the centuries. Rilke himself frequently walked through the forest.

The Monastery of Geronde on the hill above Lac de Geronde has housed a remarkable succession of religious orders: Augustinian Canons (before 1233-1331), Carthusians (1331-c.1355), Carmelites (1425-1644), Jesuits (1651-1660), Trappists (1803-1805 and 1831-1834), Dominicans (1870-1873), and an institute for deaf-mutes. Since 2 May 1935, the monastery has been home to Bernardine Cistercian nuns, who cultivate 1.3 hectares of vineyards -- their wine production generates approximately two-thirds of the convent's revenue. In 1980, a fire during roofing work destroyed the 14th-century roof. The Geronde hill is one of the earliest inhabited sites in the Valais, with archaeological vestiges dating back thousands of years.

The Sierre-Montana-Crans funicular company was established on 29 September 1908, with operations beginning on 28 December 1911. Originally built in two segments meeting at Saint-Maurice-de-Laques (1,074 m) because the 4.2 km cable was too long for a single section, passengers had to transfer between funiculars. The journey took one hour, replacing a four-hour mule ride. Since 1997, it operates as a single section of approximately 4.2 km -- making it the longest funicular in Europe. The route climbs from near Sierre station (540 m) to the Crans-Montana plateau (1,471 m), a height gain of 927 metres. After renovation, it reopened on 11 December 2022, completing the journey in 13 minutes.

The Romans called Sierre 'the town of a hundred hills' (la ville aux cent collines). The distinctive hilly terrain of the valley floor derives from a massive postglacial rock avalanche that collapsed from the fractured slopes to the north, leaving a landscape of scattered mounds and knolls. On these hills, medieval castles and fortified settlements grew up: the Gerunden, Vieux-Sierre, and Plantzette hills each had a castle. In the mid-14th century, a bitter conflict erupted and the castles were razed; only the Tour de Goubing (cited 1297) survived. Sierre sits at 528 metres in the middle Rhone valley, first documented around 800 AD as Sidrium. A 12th-century document claims the settlement was founded as early as 515 AD by King Sigismund of Burgundy.

In February 1922, after nearly a decade of creative paralysis worsened by World War I, Rilke experienced an extraordinary burst of inspiration at the Chateau de Muzot near Sierre. Between 2 and 5 February, he wrote nearly all 26 sonnets of Part I of the Sonnets to Orpheus. Between 7 and 15 February, he completed the Duino Elegies, ten long philosophical poems begun in 1912 at Duino Castle on the Adriatic. Between 16 and 22 February, he completed Part II of the Sonnets to Orpheus. Both masterworks were published in 1923. The Fondation Rilke, established in 1986, occupies the Maison de Courten (built 1769) at Rue du Bourg 30 in Sierre, with holdings of over 25,000 objects.