The Amsel Falls (german: Amselfall) are a waterfall in

Saxon Switzerland Saxon Switzerland (german: Sächsische Schweiz) is a hilly climbing area and national park around the Elbe valley south-east of Dresden in Saxony, Germany. Together with the Bohemian Switzerland in the Czech Republic it forms the Elbe Sands ...

in East Germany, roughly a kilometre north of the famous

Bastei The Bastei is a rock formation rising 194 metres above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ...

crags. As the ''Grünbach'' stream passes through a particularly narrow, gorge-like section of the

Amselgrund The Amselgrund ("Amsel Bottom") is the name given to the valley of the Grünbach stream in the heart of Saxon Switzerland in Eastern Germany. It runs from Niederrathen upstream to Rathewalde. The wild and romantic valley takes hikers through the ...

valley it plunges over the largest step in the river bed - roughly 10 m high - forming a wide spray of water that pours over the ''Amselloch'', a collapsed

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

. The roof of this cave was made of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

blocks that have collapsed. In the

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.pothole A pothole is a depression in a road surface, usually asphalt pavement, where traffic has removed broken pieces of the pavement. It is usually the result of water in the underlying soil structure and traffic passing over the affected area. Water ...

s and kolks bear witness to the meltwaters that coursed down into the

River Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...

during earlier

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

s. The original stream (first mentioned in 1548) flowed almost entirely through the cave, but in the 19th century it had been diverted over the top of the cave to the cascade site. The waterfall was additionally, like the

Lichtenhain Waterfall The Lichtenhain Waterfall is a waterfall formed by the Lichtenhainer village brook and is situated in the Kirnitzsch Valley in the Saxon Switzerland of Germany. The village of Lichtenhain lies to the north of the waterfall, and is away on foot, ...

, arranged to flow through a small, controllable weir wicket in order to produce a stream-like torrent, in order to enhance its touristic attraction. In the immediate vicinity of the waterfall is the Amselfall mountain hut with an inn and next to it is the information office of the

Saxon Switzerland National Park Saxon Switzerland National Park (german: Nationalpark Sächsische Schweiz), is a national park in the German Free State of Saxony, near the Saxon capital Dresden. It covers two areas of 93.5 km² (36.1 mi²) in the heart of the German ...

opened in 1992. It is open from April to October, but closed in winter. As one of the first artists, who captured the beauty of Saxon Switzerland along the so-called Artists' Way (''Malerweg''), Christian Gottlob Hammer painted the Amsel Falls.

Gallery

File:Hammer CG (C01)Amselfall.jpg, The Amsel Falls ca. 1820 File:Amselfall79.jpg, The Amsel Falls ca. 1900 File:Amselfall (01).JPG, The Amsel Falls in 2008 File:Amselfallbaude (01).JPG, The ''Amselfall'' mountain hut in 2008 File:Amselfall_2014.jpg, The Amsel Falls 2014

Gallery

References

See also