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March 2002

Northeastern Switzerland (Lake Constance Area and Liechtenstein)

David Aaronson
2005-09-27 20:32:06

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A little ways northeast of Zurich in the Schaffhausen Canton of Switzerland is the largest waterfall in Europe (1). Named Rheinfalls (it is on the Rhine river) it isn't necessarily all that high (23m / 70ft) but it is wide and there's a tremendous volume of water involved. The town across the river is Neuhausen (a suburb of Schauffhausen).

Apparently they are quite crowded normally, although on a random Friday in March, at 9:00 AM we saw no one else at all until we were leaving. The south bank (where these pictures are from) offers a much more impressive spectacle than the north bank. You'll also see the beginnings of two running themes for our Switzerland pictures. The first is the crane in the background in the upper picture. The second, in the lower picture are Joe and Kelli, mostly because they were travelling with us.

Just a bit east of Rheinfalls near the border with Germany is the highly touted (by tourbooks) village of Stein-am-Rhein. Known mostly for its well-preserved buildings, it features a ridiculous amount of frescoing (such as that shown in this picture) (2) and a whole slew of clocks, weather vanes and impressive gutterspouts.

This is the rathaus (town hall) in the main square (3). We cut the clock out of this picture to try and avoid all the cranes towering behind the building. Switzerland really likes cranes. You'll see a lot of them in these pictures despite our best attempts to avoid them. While Stein-am-Rhein was impressive at the time, after visiting quite a few other Swiss towns, it really isn't much different from several others. If the reports of massive tourist over-crowding in season are true, one would likely be better off elsewhere. Bern, for instance, features many of the same charms seen here on a larger scale.

Not a major tourist destination at all is the city of St. Gallen. It has a lovely pedestrian-centered old town, there ...