Lake Constance's stage — Bregenzer Festspiele and Vorarlberg's Alpine capital
Bregenz sits at the eastern tip of Lake Constance where Austria, Germany, and Switzerland meet, and is home to the Bregenzer Festspiele — one of Europe's most spectacular opera festivals, performed on the world's largest floating stage built directly on the lake. The Upper Town (Oberstadt) preserves medieval towers and a Romanesque church, while the modern city below is one of Austria's wealthiest thanks to Vorarlberg's precision engineering and textile industries. The casino, the cable car to Pfänder mountain, and the lake promenade complete a compact but exceptionally well-appointed destina…
Bregenz was the Roman settlement of Brigantium, an important harbour on Lake Constance (then Lacus Brigantinus) and a key port on the Roman road connecting Italy to the Rhine frontier. The medieval Oberstadt grew on the hill above, while the lake settlement developed below. Bregenz became capital of the Austrian province of Vorarlberg after 1918, and has remained one of Austria's richest regions — Vorarlberg's engineering sector (Blum, Doppelmayr) is world-class. The Bregenz Festival was founded in 1946 and has been using the lake stage since 1955.