Every design for Konstanz

Which side of the Rhine do you call home? In Konstanz the question is more than idle chat. The Altstadt and Paradies are the only parts of Germany that lie south of the river, and the Swiss town of Kreuzlingen has grown so close that the border runs between houses. North of the water, on the Bodanrück peninsula, sit the newer districts and the University of Konstanz.

Life here follows the lake. The car ferry to Meersburg runs round the clock, the Alps appear on clear days when the Föhn blows, and the Old Rhine Bridge carries you between the two halves of the city. People remember school trips to the Archäologisches Landesmuseum and the Bodensee-Naturmuseum, summer evenings by the Konzil and the feeling of a town that has been a bishop's seat, a Roman stronghold and a free city long before it became a student town.

Whether you left for a few years or never left at all, the shoreline on the map is the one you would recognise anywhere. Coming back across the bridge, with the old town ahead and the lake opening up, still feels like the right way home.