Küssnacht am Rigi

It seems there's an army of Swiss Expat Bloggers out there already. But, so far, none from Küssnacht. Küssnacht literally means "kiss night". Hence the title of this blog, which is my answer to Facebook, and those "friends" who keep asking for information about our whereabouts and happenings. And to explain the spelling variations: the ü (u umlaut) doesn't work on the web (or on most non-German keyboards) so my url uses the "ue" variant.

Küssnacht - usually referred to as Küssnacht am Rigi to differentiate it from that other, single-s Küsnacht on the lake of Zurich - is a village of around 10,000 inhabitants nestled in a shoulder of the Vierwaldstättersee (often referred to as the lake of Luzern, because that beautiful and heavily touristed city is on the western arm of the multi-limbed Vierwaldstättersee) and in the lee of the majestic Rigi. It's in the Canton of Schwyz, one of the original three cantons of the Swiss Confederation, and, according to legend, Küssnacht is the place where William Tell killed Gessler, bringing freedom from the oppression of the Habsburgs.

So we're living in the very belly of Swiss history, and, we believe, in one of the most beautiful parts of this astonishingly beautiful country. From our terrace we look south across the lake to the three big mountains, the Jungfrau, the Eiger and the Mönch, east to the Rigi, and southwest to Pilatus, Luzern's locator mountain.