Reichenbach Falls

The Reichenbach Falls is a 300 m high cascade of seven waterfalls in the course of the Reichenbach in the field of community Schattenhalb south of Meiringen in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. He is also known from a dramatic short story by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The top Reichenbach Falls is the largest. This summer rush 3-5 m³ / s, after a strong thunder up to 30 cubic meters of water to up to 40 m Width 120 m to the valley. Over the winter months the water of the case is diverted and then feeds a power plant.

Up to the top Reichenbach Falls leads the Reichenbach Falls Railway. At the mountain station, a hiking trail starts uphill to above the case with many vantage points. From the Station Hotel Zwirgi the foot path leads to the cable station with views of the waterfall, or to directly to the spot where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes struggled with his adversary; the path ends here in a fenced for security impasse. The exact location of the battle is marked with a white star, which can be seen from the cable station.

Literature and Film

The Reichenbach Falls is the subject of local legends, found early entrance to Switzerland Guide and is Handlungsort literary and cinematic narratives. A homage to the Reichenbach Falls writes Jeremias Gotthelf in his novel " Jacobs, the journeymen, hiking through Switzerland". The young German craftsmen lad Jacob, who had too much engaged in radical and communist agitation, experienced in his walk through the Bernese Oberland, the omnipotence of God in the snowy mountains and in the power of the Reichenbach Fall.

Internationally, the Reichenbach Falls was Conan Doyle's story known as " The Final Problem " in which Sherlock Holmes on May 4, 1891, together with his nemesis Professor Moriarty after a bitter fight fell down the waterfall. Later it turned out that only Moriarty had fallen. Sherlock Holmes survived and took the opportunity to stage his own death in order, later to lure Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's an accomplice in a trap. A plaque commemorates this fictional story.

The middle cases are difficult to access. The lowermost unnamed stage can be seen on a ride with the funicular.

The Reichenbach Falls is ( " Last Act: Reichenbach Fall" ) in the last episode of the series House MD quoted as House - much like his idol Sherlock Holmes - fakes his own death to disappear.