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Waterfall · Füssen, Bavaria

Lechfall

Lechfall

The Lechfall in Füssen, Bavaria, is where the river Lech falls over an 18th-century weir into the natural Lech gorge, below the König-Max-Steg footbridge.

Where it is

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47.5618, 10.6948

Why go

The Lechfall is the fall of the river Lech into a narrow gorge in Füssen, and it is not a natural waterfall: Füssen's tourism office says the river was dammed here at the end of the 18th century by an artificial weir built for hydropower, which replaced the natural cataract and today forms the falls. The office says the water drops over five steps about 12 metres into the Lech gorge, which, unlike the weir, is of natural origin, cut by the water of a glacial lake after the last ice age. The König-Max-Steg, a footbridge built in 1895, crosses the Lech directly above the fall, and a bust of King Maximilian is set into the rock beside it. The office also points to the Magnustritt, an oval hollow in the bank rock linked to the legend of St Magnus.

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Town

Füssen

Füssen is a town in the Ostallgäu district of Bavaria; its tourism office says it lies in the Allgäu in the far south of Bavaria, directly on the border with Tyrol in Austria, with the Hohes Schloss and the former Benedictine monastery of St. Mang on the ridge above the old town. Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau Castle and the Alpsee lie in the separate municipality of Schwangau, not in Füssen.

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