Introduction
Welcome to Andermatt, a village that sits at one of the most strategically important crossroads in European geography. Here, in the high Urseren Valley at 1,437 metres above sea level, four major Alpine passes converge: the Gotthard to the south, the Oberalp to the east, the Furka to the west, and the Schollenen Gorge to the north. For centuries, whoever controlled Andermatt controlled the key to the Alps, and the village's history is a chronicle of armies, traders, pilgrims, and engineers passing through this narrow alpine crucible.
This walk explores Andermatt's extraordinary story, from the medieval Devil's Bridge legend that opened the Gotthard route to the military fortifications that turned the surrounding mountains into a vast underground fortress. Along the way, you will discover a village that is reinventing itself once again, transforming from a quiet military garrison town into one of the most ambitious resort developments in the Alps.
Stop 1: Andermatt Station — 46.6358, 8.5935
The Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn station at Andermatt is a junction where rail lines from the Oberalp Pass (toward Graubunden) and the Furka Pass (toward the Valais) meet the main line through the Gotthard. You may have arrived on the Glacier Express route or from the Gotthard tunnel below.
The Urseren Valley in which Andermatt sits is a broad, flat-bottomed depression surrounded by mountains on all sides, accessible only through narrow gorges and high passes. This enclosed geography gave the valley a distinctive character: isolated enough to develop its own customs and dialect, yet connected to the wider world by the pass traffic that flowed through it.
The valley was settled in the early medieval period by Alemanni from the north and possibly by Romansh-speaking communities from the east. The valley community, the Talgenossenschaft, governed itself with a high degree of autonomy, maintaining its own laws, courts, and military organisation. This tradition of self-governance was one of the roots of Swiss democratic culture, and the Urseren Valley's inclusion in the Canton of Uri in 1410 came with guarantees of continued local autonomy.
Walk north from the station into the village centre.
Stop 2: Dorfplatz and Village Centre — 46.6370, 8.5940
The Dorfplatz is the heart of old Andermatt. The buildings around the square are a mix of traditional timber chalets and more substantial stone structures that reflect the valley's role as a transit centre. The Hotel Drei Konige (Three Kings) and the Hotel Krone (Crown) have been accommodating travellers since the stagecoach era, when Andermatt was a major stopping point on the Gotthard route.
The Gotthard Pass, which rises to 2,106 metres about 15 kilometres south of Andermatt, has been one of the most important Alpine crossings since it was first opened to pack traffic in the thirteenth century. Before the Gotthard railway tunnel opened in 1882, all traffic between northern and southern Switzerland passed through Andermatt, and the village thrived on the transit trade.
The opening of the Gotthard route in the early thirteenth century was a transformative event in European history. It created a direct link between the Rhine Valley and the Po Valley, dramatically shortening the journey between the commercial centres of northern Italy and the markets of northern Europe. The traffic that flowed through this corridor brought wealth, cultural exchange, and strategic importance to every community along the route, and Andermatt, at the junction of the passes, benefited more than most.
Stop 3: Church of SS. Peter and Paul — 46.6375, 8.5945
The parish church stands near the centre of the village, its Baroque tower a landmark visible from the valley floor. The current building dates from the seventeenth century, built in the Counter-Reformation Baroque style that characterises Catholic churches in central Switzerland.
The interior is richly decorated with stucco work, ceiling frescoes, and gilded altarpieces that contrast with the austere mountain landscape outside. This contrast between external severity and internal richness is characteristic of Alpine Baroque churches, where the investment in decorative art served both devotional and social purposes: it expressed the community's faith, celebrated its prosperity, and provided a refuge of beauty and warmth in a harsh environment.
The churchyard contains graves of soldiers from several nations who died in the military campaigns that swept through the Gotthard region over the centuries. The most significant of these was the Russian campaign of 1799, when the Russian general Alexander Suworow led his army over the Gotthard in a desperate winter crossing that is remembered as one of the most heroic feats of arms in military history.
Stop 4: Military Heritage and Reduit — 46.6382, 8.5935
Andermatt's connection to the Swiss military is profound. The village was a major garrison town from the nineteenth century until the end of the Cold War, and the mountains around it are riddled with military installations, many of them still classified.
The Swiss Reduit strategy, adopted during the Second World War, envisioned the Alps as a national fortress to which the army would withdraw in the event of invasion. The Gotthard region was the heart of this strategy, and the mountains around Andermatt were fortified with underground bunkers, artillery positions, supply depots, and command centres that could house thousands of troops for extended periods.
Several of these installations have been declassified and opened to visitors. The Sasso San Gottardo museum, located in a former military bunker at the top of the Gotthard Pass, reveals the extraordinary scale of the underground works: corridors stretching for hundreds of metres, dormitories carved from solid rock, and artillery positions concealed behind retractable steel doors that could withstand direct hits from heavy bombs.
The military presence shaped Andermatt's character for over a century. Soldiers stationed here became part of the community, and the economic impact of the garrison was significant. When the army began drawing down its presence in the 1990s, Andermatt faced an economic crisis that has been partially addressed by the massive resort development currently underway.
Stop 5: Suworow Monument — 46.6395, 8.5928
Near the northern edge of the village, a monument commemorates the passage of the Russian army under General Alexander Suworow in September 1799. This extraordinary campaign saw Suworow lead 21,000 Russian soldiers over the Gotthard Pass and through the Schollenen Gorge in atrocious autumn weather, fighting French troops at every turn.
Suworow's army had been ordered to cross the Alps to join Austrian forces in central Switzerland, but the plan was based on faulty intelligence and impossible logistics. The army had no winter equipment, no maps, and no experience of Alpine terrain. The crossing of the Gotthard, in snow and freezing rain, was a nightmare of fallen horses, lost supplies, and constant French ambush. The passage through the Schollenen Gorge was even worse: the narrow defile was blocked by French defenders, and the Russians had to fight their way through at bayonet point.
Despite the losses, Suworow succeeded in crossing the Alps and reaching the Muotatal on the other side, a feat that earned him the title Prince of Italy from the Russian Tsar and a permanent place in military legend. The Russian government erected a memorial cross carved into the rock face at the entrance to the Schollenen Gorge, which is visible from the road.
Stop 6: Traditional Urseren Architecture — 46.6388, 8.5950
Walking through the residential streets of old Andermatt, you encounter the traditional architecture of the Urseren Valley. The houses here differ from the typical Valais or Bernese Oberland chalets in several ways that reflect the valley's particular climate and culture.
Urseren houses tend to be more substantial than valley-floor chalets, with thicker walls and steeper roofs designed to handle the heavy snowfall that the valley receives in winter. Many are built of stone rather than timber, reflecting the scarcity of wood at this altitude and the availability of good building stone. The roofs are covered with heavy stone slates, a roofing material that is fire-resistant and extremely durable, though enormously heavy and requiring massive roof timbers to support it.
The villages of the Urseren Valley — Andermatt, Hospental, and Realp — share an architectural heritage that is distinct from the surrounding cantons and reflects the valley's long tradition of self-governance. Building traditions were regulated by community rules, and the valley's isolation meant that architectural innovations from the lowlands arrived slowly if at all.
Stop 7: Towards the Schollenen Gorge — 46.6420, 8.5925
Walking north from the village toward the Schollenen Gorge, the valley narrows dramatically and the character of the landscape changes. The gentle pastoral scenery of the Urseren Valley gives way to a narrow, dark defile where the Reuss River has cut through a barrier of hard granite, creating one of the most dramatic gorges in the Alps.
The Schollenen Gorge was the key obstacle on the Gotthard route. For centuries, the gorge was impassable, and travellers had to detour over the high ridges on either side, adding days to the journey. The breakthrough came in the early thirteenth century, when a bridge was built across the narrowest point of the gorge, opening the Gotthard to through traffic for the first time.
The legend of this bridge is one of the most famous in Swiss folklore. According to tradition, the gorge was so deep and the rock so hard that no human builder could span it. The villagers made a pact with the Devil: he would build the bridge in exchange for the soul of the first to cross it. The Devil agreed and built the bridge in a single night. But the canny villagers sent a goat across first, cheating the Devil of his human prize. In a rage, the Devil picked up a massive boulder to smash the bridge, but an old woman drew a cross on the stone, and the Devil dropped it and fled. The Teufelsstein, the Devil's Stone, a huge erratic boulder, still sits in the valley near Goschenen and has been carefully relocated to preserve it during modern road construction.
Stop 8: Schollenen Gorge Entrance — 46.6445, 8.5920
Stand at the entrance to the Schollenen Gorge and look into the chasm below. The Reuss River thunders through the narrow gap, its waters white with foam as they crash over boulders and through constrictions in the rock. The walls of the gorge rise vertically on both sides, dark with moisture and streaked with moss and fern.
The modern road and railway thread through the gorge on bridges and tunnels that are engineering marvels in their own right, but they follow the same route that pack mules, stagecoaches, and marching armies have used for eight centuries. The Gotthard has been Europe's most important north-south Alpine crossing for most of recorded history, and the Schollenen Gorge has always been its most dramatic and dangerous section.
The current road bridge, the Teufelsbrucke, is the latest in a succession of bridges at this point. The oldest surviving structure is a stone arch bridge from the early nineteenth century, visible below the modern road bridge. The original medieval bridge, the one the Devil supposedly built, was a simple wooden structure that was replaced multiple times as it was destroyed by floods, rockfalls, and military action.
Conclusion
Andermatt is a village where geography and history converge with extraordinary intensity. The junction of four Alpine passes in a single valley created a strategic position that has attracted armies, traders, and travellers for eight centuries. The stories layered into this landscape — the Devil's Bridge, Suworow's crossing, the Reduit fortifications, the railway tunnels — are the stories of Europe itself, told through the lens of a single Alpine crossroads.
Practical Information
- Best Time: Summer for hiking and pass driving. The Gotthard, Oberalp, and Furka passes are open June to October. Winter for skiing and the snow-covered landscape.
- Wear: Comfortable walking shoes for the village walk. Hiking boots if you plan to walk into the Schollenen Gorge.
- Bring: A camera for the gorge views. Warm layers, as the altitude keeps temperatures cool even in summer.
- Nearby Food: Andermatt has excellent restaurants. Try the local cheese and dried meat, and the valley's own Ursener Alpmilch dairy products. The Chedi Andermatt hotel restaurant offers fine dining.
- Getting There: Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn from Goschenen (10 min, connecting from the Gotthard main line) or Disentis (40 min). Part of the Glacier Express route.