The Weißes Rössl pier

The Weißes Rössl — the White Horse Inn — has been on this shoreline since the nineteenth century, and the operetta named after it made the village famous across German-speaking Europe. The building is a long yellow-and-white front with balconies and window boxes, right on the promenade, and its terrace and pier reach out over the water.

The pier is the shot. Standing a few metres out, you get the lake in the foreground, the hotel front on one side and the church tower rising behind it — the whole village in one frame without a wide lens. It also gives clean separation, which the crowded promenade does not.

Light comes across the lake from the south and east, so the front is lit through the middle of the day and warmest in the last hour. On a calm morning the reflection carries the balconies and the tower together.

The promenade and the pier are public, but the terrace itself belongs to the hotel and is in use by guests through the season — ask before setting anything up on it. In winter the boats stop and the whole shore goes quiet, which makes the same frame far easier to get.