Schadau Castle, Gothic Revival castle in Thun, Switzerland
Schadau Castle is a Gothic Revival castle with pale pink walls and grey stone trim, built 1846–1854 on the Aare where it leaves Lake Thun. Its steep grey slate roof carries dormers, tall chimneys and conical towers, with a taller square tower at the right rear and a round turret at the left front corner. A ground-floor arcade of pale stone arches runs along the front above a terrace.
Alfred de Rougemont bought the old Schadau in 1837 and had the present castle built between 1846 and 1854 to plans by James Victor Colin, with facades reworked by Pierre-Charles Dusillion. The city of Thun acquired it in 1925 and has housed a restaurant and the Swiss Gastronomy Museum there since. Its facade was renovated between 1972 and 1992 by the city's own quarrymen.
Inside the castle, the Swiss Gastronomy Museum shows how cooking habits and table customs have changed over time. Visitors can see old kitchen tools, handwritten recipes, and table settings from different periods of Swiss history.
The castle sits directly on the Lake Thun shoreline and is easy to reach on foot from the town center, with parking available close by. A reservation is a good idea for the on-site restaurant, especially for groups.
One of the castle's rooms displays a panoramic painting from 1814 by Marquard Wocher showing a typical morning in the Thun of that era. It is one of the oldest surviving panoramas of its kind in Europe.
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