Grand Tour of the Alps 2026-27

The Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen, the largest in Europe.

The Rhine Falls (in German Rheinfall), also known as the Schaffhausen Falls, are the largest waterfalls in Europe. They are an impressive sight, especially as you can get down to the level where the falls are at their most violent. Here it feels as though an enormous mass of fresh water is about to sweep you away, but a moment later you notice only a fine spray of droplets on your face, refreshing you after the effort of the many steps that must be descended to reach the foot of the falls. They lie on the upper course of the River Rhine, at Neuhausen am Rheinfall, a short distance from the town of Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland near the German border. The falls are 150 metres wide and 23 metres high, with an average flow of around 750 m³/s. The highest flow ever recorded was 1,260 m³/s in 1965 and the lowest 95 m³/s in 1921. Below the falls, on the German side of the Rhine, stands Wörth Castle, from where small boats set out for the falls on the Swiss bank, where Laufen Castle houses a restaurant, a shop and a hostel. Around 500,000 years ago the first advance of the glaciers in Switzerland took place and the present-day landscape began to form. Until the end of the Riss glaciation, around 200,000 years ago, the Rhine flowed west of Schaffhausen through the Klettgau. This ancient riverbed was later covered by glacial deposits. Around 120,000 years ago, the Rhine began to flow south of Schaffhausen and to form small watercourses. These channels, which were later filled in, can still be made out in today’s river basin. After the last ice age, the Würm glaciation, the Rhine curved southwards and began to carve its present bed into the limestone. At the transition between the limestone and the easily eroded sediments left behind by the retreating glaciers, the falls were formed, reaching their present shape between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago.

The gem. Graubünden, the mountains of Paradise. Almost a thousand spectacular peaks, over six hundred lakes and a hundred and fifty valleys, harmoniously set in the heart of the Alps, make Graubünden a wonderful backdrop. Weather permitting, on day 6 you will be able to enjoy a spectacle that alone is worth the entire journey. During the crossing of the Alps, the narrow-gauge train of Switzerland’s splendid Alpine railway system climbs over the Bernina Pass at the extraordinary altitude of 2,323 m.  

The Wieskirche is an important pilgrimage church whose origins date back to 1730, when two Premonstratensian monks from the monastery of Steingaden, Father Magnus Straub and Brother Lukas Schwaiger, made a wooden statue of the Scourged Christ for the Good Friday procession, using parts of various wooden figures and covering the joints with linen cloth. The statue, depicting Jesus covered in blood and wounds, proved a traumatic sight for the local people, and so it was consigned to the monastery attic. On 4 March 1738 the wife of the monastery innkeeper, the farmer’s wife Maria Lory, took the statue to her farmhouse so that everyone could see it; within a few days the local people were coming in procession to pray before the ‘Scourged Christ’. On 14 June 1738 the miracle occurred: that evening and the following morning Maria Lory noticed drops on the face of Christ, which she believed to be tears. This extraordinary event set in motion a great flow of pilgrims from all over Bavaria and beyond. A small chapel was built to house the wooden statue, but in time the space proved too small and work began on a large church. In the Wieskirche the Rococo reigns supreme, and the interior is a harmonious ensemble of rich stuccoes, paintings and gilded decorations created between 1745 and 1754 by the brothers Dominikus and Johann Baptist Zimmermann. Every year 1 million people come to venerate the statue of the ‘Scourged Christ’, kept in the high altar, and the church has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.