Lake Constance, a tour of three countries

Round the lake

Lake Constance is 63 kilometres long. Three countries border it: Germany to the north, Austria to the east, Switzerland to the south. Over most of the lake, no border has ever been agreed.

From Konstanz, a car ferry takes vehicles across to Meersburg. During the crossing, the castle and the terraced town come closer. The north shore is a land of orchards and vineyards. On a clear day, the Alps and the Säntis, at 2,502 metres, appear across the water.

To the east, Lindau sits on an island linked to the mainland by a bridge and a causeway. In Bregenz, a cable car climbs the Pfänder, at 1,064 metres, where you can see almost the whole lake. To the west, the lake narrows and becomes the Rhine, with Stein am Rhein, Schaffhausen and the Rhine Falls.

The lake’s other Unesco site is the island of Reichenau, listed in 2000. According to tradition, Saint Pirmin founded a monastery there in 724. In the 10th and 11th centuries, its monks painted some of the finest manuscripts in Europe, now on the Memory of the World Register.

You reach it along a causeway lined with poplars. The island still has three Romanesque churches. In Oberzell, the church of St George keeps wall paintings from around the year 1000. The rest of the island is covered with vegetable fields and greenhouses.

Konstanz, the town of the Council

From 1414 to 1418, Konstanz hosted a council. At the time, three popes were fighting over the Church. Two were deposed and the third abdicated. On 11 November 1417, the council had Martin V elected. The vote took place in the Konzil, a large warehouse built from 1388 to 1391 that still stands on the harbour. It is the only papal election ever held on German soil. The same council had the Czech reformer Jan Hus burnt at the stake in 1415.

At the harbour entrance, Imperia mocks the council. Peter Lenk’s statue, put up in 1993, is nine metres tall and slowly turns on itself. Inspired by a tale by Balzac, she holds two small naked men in her hands, one wearing a crown, the other a papal tiara.

What not to miss

1. 1The island of MainauA 45-hectare garden around a Baroque palace, in flower from spring to autumn.
2. 2MeersburgIts castle claims to be the oldest in Germany still inhabited; the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff died there in 1848.
3. 3Birnau basilicaA Baroque church among the vineyards, with its little angel licking honey.
4. 4The Zeppelin MuseumIn Friedrichshafen, where the first Zeppelin took off in 1900; a section of the Hindenburg has been reconstructed there.
5. 5The Bregenz SeebühneThe largest stage on water in the world; the festival performs La traviata there in summer 2027.
6. 6Stein am RheinA small town on the Rhine, with its painted façades, some of them from the 16th century.

Lake Constance in pictures

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Montfort Castle in Langenargen, on the water’s edge.

The Lake Constance table

The lake’s fish is the Felchen, a kind of whitefish, served fried or smoked. Fishing for it has been banned since 2024 on most of the lake; it will partly reopen from 2027, from May to August. On the German side, people eat Seelen, spelt rolls sprinkled with salt and caraway. On the Austrian side, Käsknöpfle, cheese noodles with fried onions.

The vineyards of the north shore mostly produce Müller-Thurgau and Pinot Noir, to taste in Meersburg. Across the lake, Thurgau is cider country. It is jokingly nicknamed ‘Mostindien’.