Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps: a Lakeshore Route

This itinerary circles the Alps through the UNESCO listing “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps” (2011): 111 submerged or buried stilt-house villages across six countries. Our route takes nine stops in five countries — Lake Constance and the Federsee in Germany, the Neuchâtel and Biel lakes in Switzerland, Chalain and Clairvaux in the French Jura, the Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia, and the Carinthian and Salzkammergut lakes in Austria.

Because waterlogged wood survives only while buried, the villages themselves are invisible; the route therefore alternates landscapes with the museums that interpret them, from the reconstructed pier-village of Unteruhldingen to the Laténium’s lake-floor treasury. What links the stops is preservation: the mud kept the perishable side of prehistory — wheels, nets, bread — that everywhere else is gone.

Plan a week for the western arc and a long weekend for the east. Pair every lake with its museum, and bring swimming things: these are working holiday lakes with a Bronze Age underneath.

Read the full story of this route in the CHO Magazine →