Rhine River - High Rhine Driving Tour

From Basel the road runs along the north bank of the swiftly flowing High Rhine (navigable to above Basle), which supplies power to many hydroelectric stations. The pleasant valley is bounded on the north side by the Black Forest and on the south by the Swiss Jura.

The picturesque town of Eglisau (360 m/1,181ft) has a 18th C. church situated on a higher road. From here the road cuts across the Ratzer Feld, an area surrounded on three sides by Germany, and a projecting finger of German territory linked with the district of Waldshut only by a narrow corridor. To the east of the German village of Jestetten is the small Swiss town of Rheinau.

A history of Rhine salmon fishery plus the history of small town construction.

Kaiserstuhl (350m/1,148ft), with a massive 13th century tower and a Gothic church, is picturesquely situated above the Rhine opposite the German village of Hohentengen (bridge). Road 7 then leaves the Rhine and comes to Glattfelden.

The Schaffhausen road runs from Leibstadt to Koblenz (321m/1,053ft), an important road junction near the confluence (hence its name - Latin Confluentia) of the Aare and the Rhine. From here road 7 runs via Winterthur and St Gallen to Rorschach. The Schaffhausen road turns left over the Rhine bridge (border control) into Germany. In 6km/4mi, road 7 reaches Zurzach.

2km/1mi beyond Stein am Rhein, at Eschenz, the Rhine opens out into the Untersee, the most westerly arm of Lake Constance.

Rheinau is almost completely enclosed within a loop in the river, where there is a dam on the Rhine (motorboats to the Rhine-Falls). The sumptuously appointed Baroque church (1705) belonged to a Benedictine abbey founded in the ninth century and dissolved in 1862.

From Jestetten the road runs northeast into Switzerland again to the industrial town of Neuhausen, at the Rhine Falls.

3km/2mi farther on is Schaffhausen.

From Schaffhausen take road 13, which runs 10km/6mi east to Diessenhofen.