The Rhine Source Lighthouse

3 December 2022

No mountain is too high for Swiss people, but what about the lighthouse on the Oberalp Pass at an altitude of 2,046 meters?

The Rhine Lighthouse is an hour’s walk from the source of the Rhine. The Gotthard massif is the source of four rivers: the Rhine, Reuss, Rhone and Ticino, flowing to all four quarters of the compass. The 85-kilometre-long hiking Trail Vier-Quellen-Weg (the Four Headwaters Trail) shows the way.

The Lighthouse is intended as a call to travel to the source of the Rhine, as a siren.  It was built in 2010 in the Swiss village of Alpnach, and then transported to the Oberalp Pass.

The Lighthouse is intended to serve as a visual icon for the entire Rhine region and its 50 million inhabitants. It is a replica of a Lighthouse in Hoek van Holland (the Netherlands), 1,233 kilometres from the Gotthard Massif. The original can be seen in the Maritime Museum of Rotterdam.

The lighthouse may be located on a beach again within 20 million years.

(More information: www.leuchtturm-rheinquelle.ch).