I stumbled across all these 1930s Swiss and Italian travel posters online that are up for sale at an auction house in Dresden, Germany.
I had intended to quickly share some of my favorites, but then I got curious about some of the places pictured and ended up doing some research/getting sidetracked. So I have a little extra backstory for some of them.
Pilatus Bahn, Luzern – Pilatus Railway, Railway Chemin de Fer, Lucerne, Switzerland poster by Otto Ernst, c. 1930.
At first glance, I thought this was the same mountain railway (funicular) I’d posted about previously, Gelmerbahn, but it’s actually Pilatusbahn, which is on a different Swiss peak about 40 minutes away. Different sources claim each one to be the steepest cogwheel railway in Europe, so that may be where my confusion came from.
Anyway, I found a 2009 photo of Mt. Pilatus that was taken from almost the same angle as the poster – you can even see the little red funicular making its way down the hill (on possibly-the-steepest-grade track in Europe).
Genua und die Italienische Riviera – “Genoa and the Italian Riviera,” lithograph, 1931.
Are there palm trees in Genoa? I wouldn’t have guessed that, but I’m not going to verify that right now. This post has sent me down enough rabbit trails already! (Yeah, more are on the way, I just rearranged the post to spread them out a bit.) For now, I’m going to refrain from even doing an image search.
Leuchtender Sommer – Beschwingte Fahrt. Die schöne Schweiz – Zürich poster “Bright summer – Lively ride. The beautiful Switzerland.” by Augusto Giacometti, c. 1930.
This design is such a departure from your typical travel poster. Instead of focusing on a scene from a city or landscape, it’s just a close-up of a slightly abstracted, watercolor-y butterfly.
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