2024-08 - Blog Posts
Schaffhausen's Schwabentor
Schaffhausen has a great preserved historical centre. One of the entries to this would have been the Schwabentor, the Gate of Swabia, and indeed, it faces North, towards the southwestern area of Germany. Built in 1361, it burned down in 1932, and a couple of curious features were added to it during restoration.
As I took photos, a local woman in a car stopped at the red light and told me to "keep my eyes open". What? "Lappi tue d'Augen uf, that's what it says on the tower". I noticed it just after crossing back over.
When the tower was restored in the 1930s ("Renoviert 1933" is just visible above the relief), a road junction had appeared before it, and this sign was added to warn people walking around near the Schwabentor.
Another addition are the clocks, each surrounded by a painting which are clearly 20th-century works. Carl Roesch's tableaux are called Kosmos on the South side, Kreislauf ("Cycle") on the North side, and they depict our lives in the vastness of space, and subject to the inexorable march of time, and Death can be seen at the top of the clock above: modern style it may be, but the symbols are classics.
Hohentwiel fortress
We've seen the stunning volcanic surroundings of Hohentwiel, and managed the climb - now we're at the gates of the fortress. Or the... tunnels of the fortress?
The entrance tunnels are a recent addition to the fortress, in the sense that the 18th century is more recent than the 10th, when the castle was first mentioned. For around 900 years, Hohentwiel Castle stood, seemingly and effectively invincible, receiving updates in line with the battle tactics of the times, as this entrance tunnel leading to a forward bastion, shows.
Now we are at the actual gates, exceptionally wide open to allow traffic in to set up or take away festival equipment. I thought they were setting up, but I can't find a trace of what was due early August. The largest festival the castle hosts is late July, so maybe they were taking away... but wait a minute. This place hosts festivals. It's huge.
Hohentwiel Castle is on two levels. So let's assume you and your army have made the climb, survived the open trench in the middle of the tunnels, got through the gates - and your objective is still up there. A 15% incline and the upper fortress drawbridge and gates are yet to be passed.
Perhaps unsurprisingly at this stage, one understands how the castle went undefeated. Owned by Swabian then Württemberg dukes, it stood in the crossfire of French and Austrian troops during the Thirty-Years' War between 1618 and 1648 - and survived five sieges.
It was another major conflict, nearly two centuries later, that would claim the Hohentwiel. And even then, it wasn't taken over in battle. The territories Napoleon conquered included Württemberg, and the French Emperor ordered that the castle be decommissioned and ruined in 1803.
Undefended and stripped of meaningful material, the castle was open to the public, who quickly took a liking to the astounding views of the Hegau area and the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in the distance. It became a tourist destination as early as the 1840s. And, as mentioned before, today it hosts festivals.
Hohentwiel Castle is a fantastic visit. It is an enormous complex, with a lot of structure left. The history and stunning views make the effort to get there well worthwhile. I recommend hiking from Singen city centre if you can for the fuller sense of reward!
Steep stuff: climbing the Hohentwiel
The altitude difference between Singen town centre and Hohentwiel fortress is only around 200 m... but a view of the mountain shows that it's going to be covered in a rather short distance.
To be clear, 18% is the steepest incline on the road, if you're driving a car, and even then, you'll only get to the Hohentwiel Domäne intermediate stop. The footpath starts climbing further around the mountain, and it's more of an 18% average!
The Domäne has a hotel-restaurant, at which I had lunch, providing shelter during a heavy shower! This made me hesitate to push further, and the previous post showed that there were more hovering around. I took a chance, the rain stayed away. Pick up a ticket to the castle and go through the little museum, and it's back to the climb, for pedestrians and cyclists only... still with over 20% in places!
Summer highlight reel: Hegau
Towering around 250 m above the industrial city of Singen, the Hohentwiel is one of many reminders of the geological history near the Bodensee, or Lake Constance. This whole area was once volcanic, then the softer rock was eroded by the ice age, leaving this type of steep structure, around the old volcanic tube, behind.
A mountain like this would not have been easy to climb, especially when laden with weapons and armour, so unsurprisingly, several summits have fortress ruins on them. Hohentwiel is one of them (more on that and the climb - oh, the climb! - in another post), and Hohenkrähen, that rock jutting out ahead, is another.
The views from the top of Hohentwiel are just splendid. Two more ex-volcanoes are visible here: the Hohenstoffeln to the left, and the Hohenhewen to the right - there are lots of 'hohens' in Hegau, but it just means they're higher than villages. The weather was something to admire that day too, with showers floating around, like this one over the Schaffhausen area.
A few bugs seen this summer!
The East side of Île de la Table Ronde is the noisy side, with the motorway running on the opposite side of the river. It's also the side with the widest walking track, and it was teeming with grasshoppers! I noticed a couple had landed on my shirt and were just chilling (maybe interested in eating the fabric? I'm thinking of locusts, aren't I). @teamroquette took the photos as I was unsure how much I could move without them jumping off. Turns out they were really chill.
Other critters seen this summer include some seen at Oberkirch: bees working on flowers, that's a classic, and... some less fortunate insects.
Bonus - posted here because my sister will kill me if I post this on Instagram where she can see it: a spider hanging out by Nonnenmattweiher lake.
Summer highlight reel: Île de la Table Ronde
To the South of Lyon, the "Island of the Round Table" in the middle of the Rhône offers a fantastic escape from the city. While the East side is exposed to a lot of noise from motorway traffic, the inside and West shore are gorgeous, and the southernmost end is a nature preserve.
The river flows by at a steady pace, making it a good spot for a reaction ferry similar to the ones in Basel. Fair play to the locals, they thought that too!
Bridges now do the job - though the suspension bridge from Vernaison isn't doing too well. Built in 1959, it needs replacing and until then, traffic is limited on it so as not to overload it. This hasn't been helped by the North side of the island being an industrial estate.
In the centre of the island, one finds a ruined farm, the Ferme aux Loups. One thing @teamroquette likes to do is geocaching, and so we looked for some, but the most elusive geocache of all was the namesake of the island. There are pictures of a round table associated with the island on Google Maps, but we missed it. That said, one Google review also mentions that they couldn't find it, so who knows.
We did find these interesting and somewhat imposing water level meters though. Lay on them to measure yourself... and get the wrong answer!
An alternative to Diesel: the Baureihe 563
More and more of these trains have appeared in the Offenburg area recently. Technically, I could be talking about both of the trains above because I'd never seen a Baureihe 218 locomotive (right) before, though over 400 were built in the 70s, but I am talking about the train on the left: the Baureihe 563.
5 is an unusual first digit for a German train type. Locomotives start with a 1 or a 2, for electric and Diesel power respectively, while passenger-carrying multiple units start with a 4 or a 6, again for electric and Diesel power respectively. Evidently, as seen above, these trains can run on non-electrified lines, but they are not Diesel multiple units - they are battery-electric multiple units.
Part of the Siemens Mireo family, the Mireo Plus B can run on electric power either from the overhead cable, or from the onboard batteries. The manufacturer states that the train can run between 80 and 120 km on battery power before needing a recharge from overhead cable, typically at a terminal station. This makes this train ideal for relatively short runs, such as those seen around Offenburg, the central station of the Ortenau area. As such, they are becoming more common, running local services for regional operator SWEG, indifferently on non-electrified lines like the one to Oberkirch, or electrified lines such as the picturesque Schwarzwaldbahn.
I know that Japan and the UK (link to Jago Hazzard's review of the GWR Class 230 and a quick overview of the BEMU topic) have also recently (re)introduced BEMUs. France hasn't really got on-board with this yet, as far as I know. Instead, they have built lots of bi-mode trains (mentioned at the end of the post), which have electric motors which can be powered by overhead cables or by an on-board Diesel engine.
MiniWorld Lyon
Looking for a cool place to go with @teamroquette on the hottest day of my trip to Lyon, we opted for... Lyon. But the miniature version, housed in the MiniWorld diorama park!
MiniWorld Lyon was surprisingly impressive at every level. The sets are huge and the details are amazing. We spent hours there and didn't catch everything - there are 4 Wallies (Waldos) in the whole park and I only found two. But to show the level of dedication, see that traffic jam going into Fourvière tunnel on the left? It goes all the way in, as far as the turn...
And it's like this all the way through the park. The main exhibit is divided into four zones (each with a Wally): generic city, mountain, countryside and Lyon.
This exhibit is on a 20-minute day/night cycle, and every hour, Mini Lyon holds a replica of Lyon's Fête des Lumières held in December, which includes light shows projected on buildings, such as those on Place des Terreaux.
The current temporary exhibit is called Japan Mania, with dioramas from Japanese pop culture. A few Japanese elements have been added to the main exhibit too, including something familiar...
Coot chicks in Schaffhausen and herons in flight at Konstanz. That is all for today.
Rheinfall: a second look
The weather improved greatly throughout my day at Schaffhausen, and I'd read that the falls are lit up at night, so I decided to give it a second look. And this was the view from the scenic Neuhausen Rheinfall station when I got back:
The falls roughly face West, so the evening is actually the best time to photograph them as the sunlight hits them directly.
Also, the boats stop at 6:30 in the summer, so we get a clearer view of the pool below, and no-one standing on the rock in the middle.
The trail on the Laufen side remains open though, so people can still see the falls up close, as described in the previous post.
The bridge on the far left of the top picture and at the back of the second picture is a rail bridge carrying the line from Neuhausen (central) to Schloss Laufen. It's no doubt one of the most spectacular in Europe, and it doubles up as a footbridge, allowing people to walk alongside some Swiss Dostos.
Oh, and they do light up the falls at night.
Rheinfall: up close, personal and wet
Let's start by crunching the numbers: the Rhine falls in Switzerland are 23 m tall and 150 m wide (boat for scale). On average, in summer, 600 cubic metres of water pass through every second. That's 600 000 Litres - assuming you need 2 L of water per day and will live to 80 years old, that's easily 10 times more water than you will drink in your entire lifetime, past your eyes in one second. Every second. Of every day. They don't turn this off at night!
Obviously, this is quite the unstoppable force, and the people at Rheinfall have figured out several ways to allow visitors to witness this force up close. A trail down from Schloss Laufen to the river side includes several platforms right next to the rushing water. It's noisy, it's impressive, and definitely humbling to be almost in the path of a wall of water.
But several steps further are available: boat rides that go against the current, right into the stream of the waterfall, and, not to be outdone, a boat that goes to the jagged rock smack in the middle of the falls, and drops you off for 20 minutes. I didn't do those because I was wet enough just from the rain, but it was tempting. So was a zip line in the hills, but man, if there was a zip line crossing the Rhine in view of the falls - not over them directly because that would spoil it for everyone else, but around where one of the boat crossings is -, that would be incredible!
Speaking of that rock in the middle, I love it. It's a masterpiece of erosion, and still taking the full force of the Rhine... for now. In a few thousand years I guess we won't be sending so many people there.