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Chur, Switzerland
Switzerland

Things to do in Chur

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Chur

The oldest town in Switzerland, settled for about five thousand years and a bishop's seat since the fifth century, at the point where the Rhine valley opens out. The old town is small, walkable in an hour and almost entirely traffic-free. It is also the junction of the whole Graubunden rail network, which makes it the place trips to the Engadine, the Surselva and Italy actually begin. The Rhine gorge, which the canton calls its own Grand Canyon, starts twenty minutes west.

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Things to do

5
  1. Chur Cathedral

    Chur Cathedral

    Cathedral · 1 hr

    A cathedral begun about 1150 on the bishops' court above the town, mixing Romanesque and early Gothic, with a late Gothic high altar of 1492 that is the largest carved altarpiece in Switzerland. The crypt holds the relics the see was founded on.

  2. Chur Old Town

    Chur Old Town

    Old Town · 1.5 hr

    A grid of lanes below the cathedral hill with two surviving town gates, painted facades and no cars, small enough to cross in ten minutes. It is the oldest continuously settled place in the country and it wears it lightly.

  3. Brambruesch

    Viewpoint · 2 hr

    A cable car that leaves from the middle of the town and climbs to 1,600 metres in two stages, which is unusual: most Swiss lifts start well outside the settlement. The top looks down the Rhine valley and the trail network up there runs on to Dreibundenstein.

  4. Buendner Kunstmuseum

    Gallery · 1.5 hr

    In Chur, the canton's art museum pairs the Villa Planta, a mansion of the 1870s, with a dark concrete extension of 2016 by Barozzi Veiga beside it. The collection is strong on Giovanni, Augusto and Alberto Giacometti, all from the valleys south of here, and also shows Segantini, Kirchner and Angelica Kauffmann.

  5. Ruinaulta

    Canyon · 3 hr

    The Rhine gorge west of the town, cut through the debris of a rockslide that came down about nine and a half thousand years ago and dammed the valley. White cliffs stand three hundred metres over the water and the way through is by train, raft or the path along the rim.

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