Thurgau Napoleon Trail

The magnificent panoramic location above the Untersee part of Lake Constance makes the Swiss community of Salenstein an attractive place to live. There are five castles here alone. The most famous castle lady was Queen Hortense de Beauharnais, stepdaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of the French. After his defeat at Waterloo, she fled with her youngest son to the castle Seeheim in Konstanz. When the Grand Duke of Baden expelled her from his land, she bought the Arenenberg estate in the Swiss canton of Thurgau and commissioned the then most famous landscape architect, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, to design a landscape garden at the foot of the castle. Her son Louis Napoleon, the later Emperor Napoleon III, grew up in the castle. Together with the owner of Wolfsberg Castle, he commissioned the construction of a viewing tower (Belvédère) in 1829 to present illustrious guests with a panoramic view of Lake Constance and the Swiss Alps. Visitors who were not noble were allowed to climb the tower for a fee until it became dilapidated in 1855 and was demolished. A citizen of Salenstein had the idea for a new building in 2012, which was inaugurated in spring 2017 and is now the region’s attraction. Unlike the predecessor, not only is the visit free for everyone - the panoramic view over the lower and upper lake, Hegau and Linzgau, and (in föhn weather conditions) the Alpine peaks is priceless.