Regional Routes

From Schaffhausen through Zurich’s wine country and the vineyard-lined Thur plain to Weinfelden. The Carthusian Monastery in Ittingen and Bischofszell lie along the way. The green Fürstenland finally ends in the industrial corridor of St.Gallen-Gossau.

Passing timber-framed houses of Zurich’s wine country, on past the idyllic Nussbaumer Seen (lakes) and the Kartause in Ittingen, through rolling hills to Wil and on to St. Gallen with its venerable Stift Library and finally ending at the silvery Bodensee.

Ravines and wooded knolls characterize fir-cone country, pilgrims’ stop at the former Fischingen Benedictine Monastery. Steep Sternenberg rewards with panoramic views. Over flat marshland at the Pfäffikersee, through villages and farm fields down to Zürichsee.

From Romanshorn the route climbs to the imposing moated castle of Hagenwil, and on over green hills. Then down and over the Thur, a tamed river. Soon visible, the old medieval town of Wil, centre of the Fürstenland region.

Starting in the monastery district of St. Gallen, over the chain of green hills between the Bodensee and Sittertobel, through meadows, woodland and fruit orchards down to Konstanz, focal point on the Bodensee.

Riding alongside the Rhine, you pass the St. Katherinatal Monastery, then head to countryside, to the timber-framed buildings at Stammheim. Surprisingly we have repeated panoramic views of the Alps. Apple trees increase in numbers, the Bodensee is not far off.

The multi-faceted Thur is your constant route companion, leading from where it flows into the Rhine, over the dams in Thurgau, through rugged Toggenburg woodland and up to its headwater near the Säntis massif.

The route circles the Bodensee, Central Europe’s third largest lake, an area inhabited since primeval times, through three countries, now by the shore, now through orchards, sunny meadows, old town centres, nature reserves and flower islands.