Overview
Hard is a Vorarlberg lakeside town on the eastern shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee), just west of the state capital Bregenz, where the Rhine empties into the lake. It has a quiet leisure harbour, the Mittelweiherburg textile-printing museum and forms one of the gateways to the Rhine delta nature reserve, the largest wetland on Lake Constance.
Travel
Hard is a quiet lakeside market town on the eastern shore of Lake Constance, just west of the state capital Bregenz, where the Old Rhine empties into the lake. The Rhine delta nature reserve — the largest wetland on Lake Constance — covers the open ground south of the town and reaches well into the Swiss municipalities across the river. Hard's harbour is small but active in summer, with day-boats to Lindau and Bregenz, and the lakeside promenade and beach lido make the town one of the easier swimming bases on the Austrian shore. The historic core is concentrated around the Mittelweiherburg, a moated noble residence that now houses one of the country's specialist textile-printing museums, and the lake-and-delta cycle network passes directly through.
Lakefront, Harbour and Beach
The Hard waterfront is a continuous promenade between the harbour and the open delta, with a public beach lido (Strandbad Hard) in the middle and seasonal boat services to Lindau, Bregenz and the wider Lake Constance network from the small harbour. The water here is shallow and warms early, making this one of the easier Austrian-shore swimming bases for families.
Rhine Delta Nature Reserve
Immediately south-west of the town the Rhine delta opens into the lake — the largest wetland on Lake Constance and a Ramsar-listed migratory bird site. The Rohrspitz peninsula and the Fußacher reedbeds are reached on foot or by bicycle from Hard; spring and autumn bring tens of thousands of stopover birds.
Mittelweiherburg Textile Museum
The Mittelweiherburg, a moated 14th-century noble residence on the edge of the centre, houses the small but well-curated Stoffdruckmuseum (textile-printing museum). The collection focuses on the Vorarlberg textile industry that dominated the Rhine valley economy from the 19th century into the 1970s.
Diplomatic missions in Hard
1 embassy based in this city, grouped by region.
Americas1
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