Author: Maarten Koning

The vineyards of Lavaux

The vineyards of Lavaux or the Lavaux region are also called the “Land of the Three Suns”: the sun from the sky, the sun from Lake Geneva, which acts like a mirror (Lac Léman), and the sun from the walls, which absorbs heat.

Lavaux’s landscape is one of the most extensive vineyards in Switzerland and encompasses 14 villages. It is located in the Canton of Vaud on the shores of Lake Geneva between Vevey and Lutry and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

(Source and further information: www.lavaux-unesco.ch)

Dornach

Schwarzbubenland consists of the Dorneck and Thierstein districts in the Solothurn canton.

Dornach is derived from Tornacho, Tornegg or Tornach, the Celtic-Latin name of fundus turranicus. There was a Gallo-Roman settlement in the first centuries AD.

The medieval ruins of the castles Dorneck and Hilzenstein, the Goetheanum, the monastery and the Nepomuk bridge have stories to tell. The bridge was destroyed in 1813 by a flood, and only the statue of St. Nepomuk remained intact.

The High Rhine Region

The High Rhine (Hochrhein) region stretches from Lake Constance to the Upper Rhine and is bordered to the north by the Black Forest and to the south by the Swiss Jura.

The High Rhine leaves Lake Constance at Stein am Rhein and becomes the Upper Rhine in Basel. The Rhine flows 150 km through different landscapes, narrow gorges, sparsely populated agricultural land, port facilities, and industrial areas.

This region was a cultural, linguistic, economic and political German-speaking unity under Habsburg rule, not to mention the Roman and Carolingian/Frankish periods.

Several cities, such as Rheinfelden, Kaiserstuhl or Laufenburg, bear witness to this bond, although the region today encompasses three countries.

(Source and further information: (Marie-Louise von Plessen, Der Rhein, eine europäische Flussbiografie (Bonn, 2016), Erlebnisraum Hochrhein : www.baselland-tourismus.ch).