Richard Wagner Museum, Lucerne

In a country house at Tribschen on a wooded spur into Lake Lucerne, this museum preserves the home where the composer Richard Wagner lived for six years from 1866. Here he completed several major works and married Cosima, and the rooms keep his piano, letters, portraits and death mask. The setting, reached by a lakeside walk from the city, is as much a draw as the collection, with windows framing the water and the mountains. A separate hall displays historic musical instruments in the same grounds.