Like any of Europe’s enticing glacial Lakes, Lake Constance is an excellent short-break destination, with a picturesque medieval old-town formed of winding cobbled streets lined with inviting “weinstubes”, Gothic museums, and independent boutiques. From the lakeside promenade visitors can admire the pre-Alpine landscapes around the lake, it’s surface punctuated by the town’s remarkable population of Mute Swans and Great Cormorants, among other waterfowl.
However, the serene old town and lake vistas of today’s Constance are a far-cry from the long and tumultuous history that the city and its people weathered over the past millennium – and this is what especially qualifies for a short break for the discerning traveller.
A visit to the State Archaeological Museum illuminates Constance’s history, first as a stone age settlement, then as a Celtic town, before being conquered by the formidable Romans in around 40 AD who, 400 years later, bestowed its current hydronym after one of their Emperors. In the medieval period, the city became a busy hub for trade and the museum preserves the unique wreck of a medieval trading barge, recovered from the lakebed as well as a collection of coins including gold ducats from Venice demonstrating the lakeside city’s reach and importance on the edge of modern-day Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
The Rosgarten Museum possesses equally interesting artefacts. Ranging from the fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile living over 90 million years ago and perhaps more expected in the large Natural History Museums of Europe’s capitals, to 12th century stone cut figures once adorning the town’s lazar-house, the museum is not to be missed. Visitors can trace in detail the plight of the burghers caught up in the events of the Council of Constance between 1414 and 1418. One of Medieval Europe’s most scandalous events it saw the peak of the centuries-long strife between the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor over power in Europe. Moreover, it saw the notorious heretic (or reformer) Jan Hus brought to the Lake to face trial and later execution igniting the Hussite Crusades in Bohemia. A memorial still stands where Hus was burned at the stake. The building housing the museum it itself of great appeal, housed in a former guildhall in the centre of the old town, it is characterised by wood panelling and detailed old stained-glass windows.
Intriguingly, and unusually, Constance’s medieval past persists not only in its pretty old town or its museums but also in the current inhabitants’ minds. In a display that would make the people of Como or Geneva blush, local artist Peter Lenk’s Imperia, a 30-foot concrete statue of a courtesan (referencing Balzac’s La Belle Imperia) not only stands but pirouettes at the end of the harbour. In her hands sit fools who have acquired the regalia of pope and emperor (and little else…), clear for all to see as they rotate surveying the town’s spires, harbour and lake. An oddity indeed, Lenk clandestinely installed the sculpture on private land in just 1993 to initial controversy – it has since become a defining feature on the Lake.
For any discerning traveller looking for their next lakeside cultural short break Lake Constance is an excellent idea. We recommend flights to Zurich followed by comfortable direct Swiss rail transfer followed by three nights at the historic Steigenberger Inselhotel, a converted Dominican monastery with direct lake views.
