Schaffhausen is a small city in northeastern Switzerland, sitting on a bend of the Rhine just a few kilometres from the German border. It joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501 and has a beautifully preserved medieval old town — the Altstadt is full of oriel windows, painted facades, and the imposing Munot fortress, a circular 16th-century fortification that overlooks the river from its hilltop.
The city's most famous attraction is just downstream: the Rhine Falls, the largest waterfall in Europe by volume. The falls are dramatic in any season, and you can take a boat right up to the central rock. In 1944 Schaffhausen was accidentally bombed by the United States Air Force, which mistook the neutral Swiss city for a German target — a fact the locals have not entirely forgotten.