Pile Dwellings On The Lake – That Must At Least Be A Beautiful Place!

First published: 16/08/25.

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Pile Dwellings on the lake – that must at least be a beautiful place!
Prehistoric Pile Dwellings (Inscribed)

I am Swiss. Switzerland has 13 WHS and 1 TWHS, all of which I have seen for some time now. But in Switzerland, and only here, I have another goal: I want to have seen all the locations!

Nine of these 14 are easy, as there is only one location for each. Then there are the equally easy Le Corbusier and Beech Forests (two each in Switzerland), La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle (two) and Bellinzona (three). Of these 13 (T)WHS sites, I only have one Beech Forest left to visit.

And then there are the Pile Dwellings...
Of the total 111 locations, 56 are in Switzerland!

So I was once again on my way to a pile dwelling settlement, this time in Arbon on beautiful Lake Constance. My OUV expectations were not very high, as experience has shown that there is not really much to see at pile dwellings. But pile dwellings on the lake – that must at least be a beautiful place, one might think so lightly.

One positive thing about Arbon and its pile dwelling settlement can be said: it is easy to reach. If you come from the motorway, the main road leads right through the core zone! I parked on the side of this road and took the photo above, which shows roughly 80% of the core zone. In addition to the main road, the core zone contains two sports shops and several unidentifiable factories. Lake view? There isn't one; the lake is about 500 metres away.

The whole thing reminded me of the famous double WHS car park near Utrecht, which I visited about two weeks earlier during my holiday in the Netherlands (see picture below).

I find pile dwellings interesting; I have already learnt about them in primary school. In my opinion, they have OUV. But reducing the number to a maximum of 15 representative locations would certainly have made sense for this WHS. Whatever ‘representative’ means when you can't see anything anyway...

The famous parking lot near Utrecht MoPython

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Comments

4 comments

Jay T 3 weeks, 2 days ago (Aug 17, 2025)

How does this compare with other pile dwelling sites you've seen in Switzerland? Are there others you'd recommend?

MoPython 3 weeks, 1 day ago (Aug 18, 2025)

Hi Jay They are all different, but they all have one thing in common: you can hardly see any of the original pile dwellings – but that's not surprising, as wood is not known for holding up well in water. Some are no better than Arbon, e.g. the two in Zurich, which simply cover parts of the much-used harbour basin. But I really like Burgäschisee, for example. You can walk around it in an hour and, thanks to the natural surroundings, get a good feel for what it was like in the past (see Adrian Turtschi's review). Or the Grandson-Corcelettes Les Violes site on Lake Neuchâtel, not far from Yverdon. But if you really want to see and learn something, then it's best to go to the German side of Lake Constance to Unteruhldingen (see various reviews here). However, the reconstructed pile dwellings there are a few hundred metres away from the core zone, so you'll also have to stare at the indefinable water at the harbour!

nan 3 weeks, 1 day ago (Aug 18, 2025)

In Lake Constance, the museum is very tangible, but not in the core zone. But a short walk down the pier into the lake and you can (at least I thought so) spot the piles. So, I felt this was a nice combination. Personally, I feel these types of sites are best combined with a museum for the visitor experience.

Jay T 3 weeks ago (Aug 19, 2025)

Thanks for the recommendations!

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