Rheinfall And Schaffhausen

When I arrived in Zurich, it was well over 35 degrees Celsius (that's nearly 100 for those of us who measure in Fahrenheit); the humidity was in the low 90s. However, the next two days, the temperatures dropped 30 degrees and it rained periodically.

By the fourth day, the sun had returned, so I took the half-day tour north through Winterthur to Rheinfall, Europe’s biggest waterfall, on the Rhine River. Leaving Zurich, the bus took us through northeastern Switzerland into the the rolling green hills of the wine grower region.

After an hour or so, we reached Schauffhausen, a quaint little medieval town with the look of a pastoral village you might see in Deutschland, no surprise given its proximity to the German border.

Rheinfall is impressive, though not nearly as big as Niagara Falls. The amazing spectacle has two castles overlooking the falls (above) –- the Schloss Worth on the north bank and the Schloss Laufen on the south bank. Our tour bus parked at Schloss Worth (below), where we ferried over to the falls by boat to the tall rock in the middle.

Once there, you can watch the water rushing around the rock. I had to move quickly in getting my shots because tourists clamber over each other to ascend the narrow metal stairs to the top of the rock and the line was a constantly undulating snake.

During WW II, Schauffhausen became the only town in Switzerland to take a direct hit from Allied bombers, a seemingly honest mistake considering it’s less than a mile to the German border. The return route actually took us into Deutschland before crossing back into Switzerland on our way to Zurich.