The Sunken Barge

This is a panorama of Lake Flückiger in Freiburg. The town of Freiburg is situated in the wide valley between the Vosges and the Black Forest, which was dug by the river Rhine.  On its way to the sea, the Rhine left its loads of sand and gravel here. For this reason, there are many gravel pits in the Rhine Valley. One of these pits was dug by a company named “Flückiger” in the 1920s in a part of Freiburg that used to be fields and orchards. Once the pit was no longer an active gravel site, it was filled with water and transformed into a swimming lake.

In 1986 a State Garden Show took place in Freiburg, with the lake in its centre. Many buildings and attractions were added for this occasion. Can you see the building with the green roof for example? This is now used as a community centre. To the left of it, there is a white sail. This is the roof of a stage on the lake. Further to the left, there is a small brown tower, that was built from the local red sandstone.

Move further to the left. Marked with a white circle, there is an orange buoy, indicating the lakes biggest secret.

Gravel pits can be very deep and hidden below the surface of Lake Flückiger – at a depth of 8 to 19 m - there lies the hulk of a sunken gravel barge.

At the State Garden Show, this barge was an art installation called “The Ark”. At each side of the barge an outrigger was installed with pumps and nozzles. They produced a constant spray of water over the barge. When the sun was shining, a small rainbow could be seen.

Nobody knows for sure, how the barge ended up on the bottom of the lake, but there are many theories. Many favour this one: Some scuba divers removed a valve in the lower part of the hull of the barge to use the barge as an attraction for practicing in the lake. But this is just another theory.

On this website, you can find some images of the sunken barge: https://www.chilli-freiburg.de/stadtgeplauder/mysterioes-im-seepark-liegt-seit-38-jahren-ein-wrack/

Europe / Germany

Lat: 48° 0' 42.177" N
Long: 7° 49' 4.801" E

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Canon EOS 5D MKIV, Canon EF 8-15mm, Nodal Ninja R1, DXO, Photomatix Pro 7, PTGui Pro, Photoshop, Topaz Photo AI, Pano2VR