#schaffhausen

Neuhausen Rheinfall (97 km) is undoubtedly the most spectacular station on the route, with a panoramic view of the Rhine falls, which I previously visited in summer - links to post 1 and post 2.

It's fair to say that the falls are more impressive in summer, as in winter, water flows by at half the rate. It transforms the roaring beast into something somewhat more tranquil, the lower level of the river, and far lower level of tourism, offering the local water birds some space to wade.

The Swiss train line connects with the German Hochrheinbahn at Schaffhausen (94 km from Basel Bad Bf, 100 km from Basel SBB). The city has a beautiful historic centre which deserves its own post, though I have talked about one of its towers. It boasts a unique round fortress, the Munot, which also deserves its own post. Let's just say that it was innovative in the modern sense of the term (i.e. it tried to reinvent the wheel and turned out being not very good).

My schedule meant that I couldn't follow the Rhine further, but a Swiss line does continue close to the river. It crosses near the Munot to Feuerthalen (102 km), and continues on to Stein am Rhein (120 km) and Kreuzlingen (146 km), where it is possible to cross to Konstanz (147 km) in Germany, of Lake Constance fame. Back to Schaffhausen and view above: behind that hill on the left of the picture is another border curiosity, Büsingen, a German exclave. The Tim Traveller has made a video about it - link.

Back on the Hochrheinbahn, we reach Singen (113 km from Basel Bad Bf), which I made several posts about after my visit in Summer 2024. This time, it was just a stopover, the night before returning to Schaffhausen, just enough time to go back to the place I'd teased this series with, and picture the local Ampelmännchen: a local Fasnacht character called Poppele.