Laufen Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Laufen Castle is a castle in the canton of Zurich, 5 kilometres south-west of Schaffhausen. It is listed in the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance. The castle is built on rocks from which the Rhine plunges more than 20 metres, across a width of 100 metres, between the Bohnenberg hill, on the side of the Neuhaasen gorges, and the Kohlfirst hill, north-east of Laufen Castle. The complex is first mentioned in 1123. It passed to Zurich in 1544 and served as the residence of the bailiffs. ‘Let us imagine,’ says Madame Roland, ‘the whole river, in the fullness of its majesty, falling at once from 70 or 80 feet, like a sea of leaping foam; three rocks, crowned with some greenery, interrupt the course of this vast sheet of water; the angry river beats their flanks furiously, undermines them, thins them, and multiplies its falls through the gap it has made among them; it plunges with a roar that spreads dread and resounds through the whole valley; the broken waves rise in vapours where the brilliant rainbow plays.’