Sunday we took a family trip to the border town of Stein am Rhine. It was an hour train from Zürich through Winterthur and north to the Rhine river valley. Some of the landscape reminded us of Wisconsin and Minnesota with the fields and rolling hills. We wandered the main streets of the city where the buildings date from the 1400s and most are lavishly decorated with artwork and stained glass windows. No cars are allowed within the "walled" part of the city, and the streets are cobblestone. We hiked up the (steep) hill to the Hohenklingen castle which is open to the public and gave us great views of the Rhine river, Untersee (lower portion of Lake Constance i.e. Bodensee, and the valley. After exploring the various rooms in the castle, we hiked a longer trail down the hill which took us through the trees, and later we realized through part of Germany. The kids were delighted to find the international border marker by a corn field, and Leif stood with one foot in each country. There was a date of 1966 on the stone marker, and we were not sure if this was the year it was established, as the border has changed somewhat throughout the centuries. It is an oddly shaped border that does not follow a river or mountain ridge, so we're not sure how it was designated that way. After our hike, we ate gelato in a cafe and walked along the river before boarding the train back to Zürich in time for dinner.
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