The Rhine Falls, at Neuhausen near Schaffhausen, are the biggest plain waterfall in Europe, not in height, which is about twenty-three metres, but in volume, with a stream some hundred and fifty metres wide pouring over the rock in the early summer when the snow melts in the Alps. The water thunders and the spray hangs in the air, and a central rock, a stump of limestone, stands in the middle of the torrent. A walkway and a set of platforms take you almost to the foam, and the whole thing smells of wet stone and minerals.
The falls were created at the end of the last ice age, about fourteen to seventeen thousand years ago, when the Rhine was pushed into a new bed by the glaciers and found a hard band of limestone across its path. Goethe visited in the eighteenth century and wrote of the effect on him, and painters including Turner came to paint it. On the north bank sits Schloss Laufen, a castle with a restaurant and a viewing platform, and boats run from both banks to the central rock, which you can climb in season.
The surroundings are mixed: factories and rail lines nestle close, and the town of Neuhausen, with ten thousand inhabitants, is largely industrial. It is not a place for corners, and this is where the Grand Tour starts to bite on a ride from Zurich to Davos, a day of about two hundred and fifty kilometres heading east and south. The riding near the falls is on flat valley roads and low hills, with views of vineyards and the river, and the German border is only a few hundred metres away, so the road sometimes slips across and back.
Parking is simple in the area, with plenty of space for bikes beside the falls. Try to come in the morning or late in the afternoon when the crowds thin, and take waterproofs if you plan to go on a boat. Fuel is plentiful in Neuhausen and Schaffhausen. The Swiss motorway vignette is needed for the motorways, and speed cameras are common.