We drove 60 km north to Schaffhausen which is close to the border of Germany. The google map said it would take 48 minutes it took us much longer! We got stuck trying to get onto the autobahn! The signs on the road are not always the same as the directions given by google. André's GPS is still on it's way here with all our other things from South Africa so we had to rely on my navigational skills. In the end we got the iphone out to get us on the road. All part of the fun!
We arrived in Schaffhausen and tried to find the tourism office to get a map and better directions for the hike. myswitzerland.com is a great site, but not very detailed.. Anyway we never found the tourism office. Saw it on a map and saw direction signs to it, but never actually found it!
So here's directions if you want to go there, it's well worth it. Start at the train station and follow the signs to the river. I could tell you to walk in the direction you came from, but you might come from a different direction! Follow the river downstream and cross at the bridge. You can't miss the bridge. The rest of the walk is all along the left bank of the Rhein river. After a while you'll have to leave the river (follow the yellow 'Wanderweg' signs) and you'll pass by some vineyards. Beautiful!
You'll walk through a town called Flurlingen and after about 10 min you'll reach a forest.
Carry on along the river through the forest. Nice and cool in the shade for a summer walk.
You'll arrive at Schloss Laufen. Sadly this castle was closed for renovations. From what I understood it will open at the end of May so we were just a week or two too early. Never mind. Passed the castle we got to steps. This takes you to the most amazing waterfall!!!
You have to experience this! It's the Rheinfall (Rhine waterfall) and apparently the biggest in Europe. 150m wide, 23 m high with 700m3 of water rushing over the cliffs every second! You get so close to the water. If you go all the way down the steps you stand on a platform and water rushes pass beneath you. Truly an amazing experience.
You can take a boat ride closer to the falls and even climb the rock island.
Before we went I planned for us to do all this. While we're being tourists we should do it properly, right. But when we got there just standing there was enough for us! We didn't feel like getting wet which happens when you go so close to all that water falling down a cliff. And the part about climbing the rock - I didn't expect it to be quite so high and steep and close to the falls. I don't like heights!
From here you can walk downstream past the "Rheinfall Mändli" boat landing another 15 minutes (or so they say) through the forest. At Nohl bridge follow Dachsen signpost and arrive at Dachsen train station. You can take the train back to Schaffhausen.
From the website they said it's a 3 3/4 hours walk there. It took us about an hour only! I don't know if we did something wrong or accidently took a shortcut somewhere! We didn't even walk fast. So we decided to get some more exercise and walked the same route back to Schaffhausen. All in all, with many photo stops it took us about 2 hours 40min there and back.
We strolled around the old town of Schaffhausen which is so beautiful. Cobble stone streets, beautiful old building and a great atmosphere on a Saturday.
Look around for Haus zum Ritter with it's Renaissance frescoes:
We had lunch at a Thai restaurant. Happy to find something other than Italian! We love pizza and pasta, we really do, but it can get a bit much. Why are there so many Italian restaurants here? I know there might be many Italians but surely there are other people who could open restaurants too and serve something else.
A bit off the topic now, this week I want to try make my own pizza dough. So watch my other blog to see how it turns out!
After Schaffhausen we drove to Stein am Rhein. I'll tell you more about that and Sunday's visit to Heidi later.
