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Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Switzerland

Things to do in Schaffhausen

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Schaffhausen

A town on the north bank of the Rhine, on the German side of the river and almost surrounded by Germany, with an old town of oriel windows and a round fortress above it. Boats existed here because goods had to be unloaded and carried around the falls downstream. Those falls are the reason most people come: the largest waterfall in Europe by volume, three kilometres west. Stein am Rhein, upstream, has the most completely painted town square in the country.

4 places on record

Things to do

4
  1. Rhine Falls

    Rhine Falls

    Waterfall · 2 hr

    The largest waterfall in Europe by volume, 150 metres wide and 23 metres high, carrying up to six hundred cubic metres a second at the June melt. Boats land on the rock in the middle of it and there is a viewing platform at the lip.

  2. Allerheiligen Abbey

    Monastery · 1.5 hr

    A Benedictine house of 1049 in the middle of the town, with the largest Romanesque cloister in Switzerland and a herb garden in it, now holding the regional museum and the art collection.

  3. Munot

    Fortress · 1 hr

    A circular fortress of 1585 above the town, built to a plan influenced by Duerer, with a spiral ramp inside wide enough to ride a horse up. Its watchman still rings the bell at nine every evening.

  4. Stein am Rhein

    Old Town · 2.5 hr

    A town twenty kilometres upstream whose main square is painted end to end with sixteenth-century facades, each house named rather than numbered. The abbey of St. George beside it survived the Reformation as a museum.

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