The city of falls

A visit to the medieval city of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is a walk
back into history, write Hugh and Colleen Gantzer


A view of Rheinfalls

Autumn was blazing gold, copper and wine-red on the trees as we strolled around Schaffhausen’s beautiful old cobbled streets.

Like their autumn foliage, most towns in this part of Switzerland shimmer with history, and their rich past is still a very viable part of their present. The 11^th century, half-timbered, Mint House survived the old fire-safety rule, which condemned others after a great conflagration raged through the town, centuries ago.

The ancient Abbey, also, still stands: a magnificent old structure of soaring, Romanesque, stone arches, a quiet cloister, and a restored herb garden, once used by the priest-doctors to treat their patients. Though the monks have gone, their presence lingers on, in the great Munsterkirche, the cathedral, and in its great bell, now mounted on a platform.

From the cathedral we trudged up the winding road to Der Munot, the city’s circular fortification, giving an eagle’s eye view over the surrounding valley. It was once ringed by a deep moat that is now a lawn where fallow deer roam. The vaults of the fort are cool, the views of the vineyards stretching down to the town are impressive, and a watchman and his family still live in the Stone Tower. His duty is to strike a bell at 9 o’clock at night. Today there is a casino and nightclubs in Schaffhausen, but in the old days, anyone caught in the streets of the town after the Nuunigloggli curfew bell would be jailed.

Presumably then, as now, these rules did not apply to the rich and famous: and there were many of those in old Schaffhausen, as we saw. The great status symbol of those days was to have the facades of houses richly decorated. We walked down the winding old streets, admiring the resplendence of the old mansions. The 15th-16th century Haus zum Ritter is covered in the most striking frescoes: virtually a brilliant canvas on its facade! It also has that epitome of a status statement: a bay or oriel window. The old streets are also intriguing. We admired the beautiful Mohrenbrunnen am Fronwagplatz fountain. Dating to 1535, this shows a dark-skinned man with a turban, a curved sword and a golden goblet. He is said to represent Caspar, the youngest of the Three Wise Men who set out from ‘the East’ to worship the Christ-child in Bethlehem. According to Jesuit scholar Father H. Heras, the three savants, often called ‘the Three Kings’, were from south India.

Then there’s the intricate Fronwagturm. It’s an astronomical clock made in 1564 and it shows the hour and the occurrence of nine other heavenly phenomena, including eclipses, the rising and setting of the moon, and the passage of the sun through the zodiac.

Art, however, continued to blossom along with such scientific achievements. In the 1700s, the delicately decorative Rococo style was all the rage. We stood looking up at the tasteful, embellished plasterwork of the Zum Steinbock. Against a white background, grey stuccowork stood out in relief, occasionally highlighted by pink. Its oriel window had a certain understated regality as if it were sitting on a plush, pink, crown. The mansion is called the ‘Steinbok’ because of the Alpine Ibex, with its long horns, depicted to the right of the bay window.

The Rhein was responsible for both the prosperity of this town. The canton of Schaffhausen protrudes like a berry into Germany. It is the northernmost of the cantons of Switzerland, is German speaking, and it thrived on cross-border trade in those distant days before the blight of customs duty became a barrier for the free-flow of goods between countries. Ships, unable to sail down the falls, had had to offload their cargo and have it either sold in Schaffhausen, or carried around it. A porter’s village, and a market town, had grown on these burgeoning activities The word Schaff could refer to Sheep houses, because sheep had to be trans-shipped here; or Ship houses, or Workers’ houses. We decided to have a close encounter with these iconic falls, which are Europe’s largest falls.

We boarded a boat along with other thrill-seeking passengers and headed into the swift-flowing river. Soon we were pitching and heaving like a leaf in a millrace. Some passengers clung to the gunnels, their knuckles white as they gripped the edges of the boat. Most had their eyes fixed on the roaring, foaming anger of the white cascade ahead as we drew closer, and closer, its spray enveloping us in a cloud of furious mist. We were awesomely close to the 16,000-year-old Rheinfall: 150 m wide, 23 m high, gushing 600 cubic meters of water over its cliffs every second. For us, it was an exhilarating experience. But even so, we were glad to be back on firm ground again.

And in the gold, copper and wine-red serenity of the cobbled streets of old Schaffhausen.

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