Rapperswil-Jona

This guide to Rapperswil-Jona near Zurich follows a bridge raised across the lake between 1358 and 1360 on the order of Duke Rudolf the Fourth of Austria, meant to speed pilgrims toward the Black Madonna at Einsiedeln Abbey and on over the Alps to Santiago de Compostela. It traces the small chapel built midway across the water in 1551, the Heilig Huesli, where pilgrims paused to pray suspended between two shores, and the 1878 demolition that tore the old crossing down for a solid causeway. Stand at the chapel's threshold, timber and lake on every side.