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Pocket Switzerland

Lake Constance

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Lake · cantons of Thurgau and St. Gallen · 395 m

A broad sheet of water in the north-east, shared with Germany and Austria.

From the basket

Up in the country’s north-east, Lake Constance is a lake of three countries: its shores are Swiss, German and Austrian. From the balloon it looks immense, almost a small sea, with the line of the Alps on the horizon reflected in its waters.

In reality, there are two lakes. The larger, the Upper Lake, lies among the three countries. The second, the Lower Lake, smaller, has only two neighbours: Switzerland and Germany. The two are joined by a short section of the Rhine, four kilometres long, which runs through the city of Konstanz.

The Rhine, down from the Alps, enters the lake from the east, then leaves it towards the west to continue on its way to Schaffhausen. Laid end to end, the shores of the two lakes measure more than two hundred and seventy kilometres, seventy-two of them in Switzerland.

Cross it from end to end, starting where the Rhine flows in and finishing at Konstanz, then let yourself be carried towards the Swiss shore and its orchards.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Lac de Constance” (in French).

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