Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73 cm x 48.57 cm
Producer: Sure-Lox, The Canadian Group
Notes: Beautiful landscape, very serene to make. Not completely trivial due to large regions of similar colours, but with Sure-Lox pieces fitting well together, still a pleasure to do. Starting with the grass regions is easiest, filling in the houses, and then dealing with the boundary regions between mountains, the ice, and the sky, provides enough guides to fill in the remainder of the pieces.
Size: 1250 pieces
Dimensions: 72.4 cm x 61.8 cm
Producer: Waddington Sanders, 1987, #116-3
Puzzle: This puzzle is best done leisurely, as it is large and there are quite a few distinct regions. I have started with the windows and the ridges between floors and parts of the building to define the vertical and horizontal guides. The flowers and the street as well as the roof/sky line can be made easily as well. The rest of the walls with frescoes take a bit more time, and good lighting is a plus. The pieces fit together reasonably well.
Notes: Stein am Rhein is a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland. The town has a well-preserved medieval centre, retaining the ancient street plan. The site of the city wall, and the city gates are preserved, though the former city wall now consists of houses. The medieval part of the town has been pedestrianised and many of the medieval buildings are painted with beautiful frescoes. [Wiki]
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 68 cm x 47 cm
Producer: Castorland Puzzle
Notes: The Zinalrothorn (4,221 m) is a mountain in the Pennine Alps in Switzerland. Its name comes from the village of Zinal lying on the north side and from the German word Rothorn which means Red Peak. When it was first climbed in 1864 the mountain was known locally as Moming. [Wiki]
The Valais (German: Wallis) is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton of Valais lies in the southwest of Switzerland. To its south lies Italy, to the southwest France. To the north the canton is bounded by the Swiss cantons of Vaud and Bern; the cantons of Uri and Ticino lie to its east.
The wide, glacial Rhône valley dominates the area. There are many side valleys which branch off the main valley. These vary from narrow and remote to reasonably populous and popular. At the head of the Mattertal valley lies Zermatt, a pretty tourist village dominated by views of the Matterhorn (4,478 m). Fifty of the mountains exceed 4,000 m with the highest, Monte Rosa, reaching to 4,638 metres, and there are numerous glaciers including several of the largest in the Alps. [Wiki]
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.5cm x 33cm
Producer: RoseArt, Encore series
Notes: Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland comprises three main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, and Italian, to which the Romansh-speaking valleys are added. The Swiss therefore do not form a nation in the sense of a common ethnic or linguistic identity. The strong sense of belonging to the country is founded on the common historical background, shared values (federalism, direct democracy, neutrality) and Alpine symbolism. [Wiki]
Translation: City Map of Basel by Matthäus Merian, 1615-17
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 49cm x 36cm
Producer: Historical Museum Basel
Story: “Since it was executed by Matthäus Merian in 1615 and presented to Basel’s City Council, the large map of the city of Basel, a handcolored pen-and-ink drawing now housed in the Historical Museum, has always been greatly admired. Its correct reproduction of numerous details that have since disappeared make the map an incomparable document on the image of the 17th-century city.
Careful observation will reveal that this is not only an artistic work but one based on geometry as well, a fact alluded to by the compass drawn in on the scale of measure. If one follows Merian’s career, however, it would seem that there was no time available to him for this kind of work. Born in 1593, Merian went to Zurich when he was 16 years old to be educated under the engraver and painter Dietrich Meyer. After his apprenticeship Merian traveled to Nancy and then to Paris where he worked out a map for the city of Paris in 1615. When then could he have surveyed the city of Basel? I make bold to assume that Merian’s city map took Hans Bock’s survey, commissioned by the government in 1588, as its basis. This assumption in no way diminished Matthäus Merian’s great contribution in service to his native city.” [From F.Burchhardt. Über Pläne und Karten des Baselgebietes aus dem 17.Jahrhundert (On 17th-century maps and plans of the area in and around Basel)]
The large city map was published in 1615/17 as an etching on four plates. It is 72.5 cm. high and 109 cm. wide. © Historical Museum Basel 1998.
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben
Location: Iseltwald is a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The village lies on a delta at the south bank of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland. It is 14 km (9 mi) from Interlaken, the road mostly running along Lake Brienz. It consists of the village of Iseltwald and the hamlets of Furen, Sengg and Isch as well as scattered farm houses through the woods and into the alps.
Iseltwald has a population (as of 31 December 2009) of 410. As of 2007, 6.8% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -9.9%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (97.2%), with French being second most common ( 0.7%) and Italian being third ( 0.7%). [Wiki]
Size: 500 pieces, 1 missing
Dimensions: 33.02cm x 48.26cm
Producer: Kodacolor
Location: Aargau is one of the more northerly cantons of Switzerland. The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state[1] with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848. [Wiki]
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 33.02cm x 48.26cm
Producer: Kodacolor
Location: Ascona is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5000 and is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The “Monte Verità” (literally Hill of Truth) in Ascona has an important historical background. At the beginning of the 20th century, a colony was founded on it which preached the return to nature. The colony attracted a large number of artists, anarchists and other famous people, including Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Erich Maria Remarque, Hugo Ball, Else Lasker-Schüler, Stefan George, Isadora Duncan, Paul Klee, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Wigman, Gyula Háy, Max Picard, Ernst Toller, Henri van de Velde, Rudolf Laban, Frieda and Else von Richthofen, Otto Gross, Erich Mühsam, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, and Gustav Stresemann. [Wiki]
