Konstanz, Germany — Switzerland, Austria and Germany share the shores of Lake Constance, the largest lake in the German-speaking world. Visitors go hiking, biking and boating and maybe even take a zeppelin ride in honor of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself, inventor of the helium-filled airship and a native of Konstanz.

Die-hard hikers can round the lake in 14 days, and bikers in two or three, but it's much more fun to mix it up. Many Americans fly into Zurich, Switzerland, then hop a train to descend the stairs to the Rhine Falls, Europe's largest cataract. The falls are riven by a jutting rock, a cleft that shoots foam and spray up in a moody mist evocative of a Romantic-era canvas.

Betsa Marsh / Travel Arts Syndicate (ENLARGE)

Visitors to the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, board a full-scale replica of the Hindenburg.

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From the falls, how about a boat ride to Stein Am Rhine, a riot of frescoes on medieval façades?

Boats from the Bodensee White Fleet zigzag from shore to shore, and with a Swiss Pass, it's easy to make the split-second connections between train and boat that the system often requires. Because Switzerland remains outside the European Union, you'll need Swiss francs and a few minutes of patience at the border crossings.

Between euro-based Germany and Austria, however, it's smooth sailing — no border patrols. You'll just need a Rail Europe pass for the train and a boat pass for the White Fleet — and maybe a Bodensee Card, which combines a range of boat passages, mountain railways and tourist admissions.

On board the White Fleet boats, it's all about vacation: Lake Constance has traded its former commercial traffic for passengers. The walk-on passenger boats operate through October, while the car ferries chug year-round.

Dozens of cyclists roll their bikes onto the boats to crisscrossing the lake or just taking a break from pedaling. Switzerland also has a novel solution to save us energy on the lakeside trails: the motorized Flyer bike that adds a 50 percent boost to your own leg power.

The bike trail from Romanshorn to Altnau is a humane grade, with plenty of time to admire the lake and the rows of espaliered apple and pear trees. As a reward at the end of the trail, Frau Rita Barth will whip up a bracing lunch and her legendary apple and pear tarts as part of the family's farm-stay bed-and-breakfast.

There are horses to pet, calves to sweet-talk and even chores to do, if you like, in the lake front fields. At the end of a busy day, Barth, president of the Association of Swiss Holiday Farms, will show you to your simple bunk in the communal hayloft.

Longing for a bit more luxury after a day's pedaling? Hop a train or boat to elegant St. Gallen, Switzerland's highest city.

St. Gallus is a palpable spirit all around Lake Constance, an Irish monk who sought the simple life of prayer and work in the early 600s. He settled in a bit of swamp in the city that's named after him.

Brother Gallus might be dismayed to see the chic city now, a fashion center famous for its haute couture embroidery that glitters on Paris runways. But the cathedral on the site of his hermit's cell still fulfills his vision, even as it overwhelms in an effusion of Bodensee Baroque, an interior of paintings, carvings and plaster filigree painted a distinctive Lake Constance seafoam green.

Next door, the monastic library of St. Gallen is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, festooned with the same 18th-century decor but with manuscripts written on site soon after Gallus' day. The collection has more than 200 manuscripts hand-copied before the year 1000, as well as the first book in German, a small, square vocabulary from 790, and some of the earliest music notation.

It's hard to pull away from St. Gallen, but Bregenz, Austria, beckons. From the lake, Bregenz rises into the 3,460-foot Pfaender Mountain, a stiff climb straight up for a view off to four countries — don't forget tiny Liechtenstein — and nearly 240 Alpine peaks. Much easier is the cable car ride down.

Lake Constance is a seesaw of exertion and indulgence — a three-mile vertical climb up the Pfaender one morning, then an ice cream coffee that afternoon. Plenty of restaurants are eager to ply you with lake perch, wiener schnitzel, spaetzle noodles and ice cream plus the lake's own brands of beer, wine and holler-sekt, a light mix of elderberry and sparkling wine that's a perfect aperitif after a rigorous day.

Meersburg, Germany, wears the crown as Lake Constance's wine capital, the vines dipping from the steep hillsides down nearly to the water. New Castle Square squishes with grape-stomping for the annual September wine festival.

Gliding above all these lakeside landmarks is a genuine zeppelin, built by a branch of the same firm that Count von Zeppelin founded in 1900. Eleven passengers who pony up about $490 an hour can float over the lake.

If that ticket's too rich, the industrial town of Friedrichshafen offers the next best thing — a full-scale section of the re-created Hindenburg in its Zeppelin Museum. The giant airship, the size of 2 1/2 football fields, ignited upon arrival at Lakehurst, N.Y., 70 years ago, and "within 40 seconds," said guide Margaret Sharman-Elbs, "was a pile of wreckage."

Here's the place to marvel at what little remains — a charred clock, a blistered camera, the burned uniform of the radio operator — then step into the re-created Hindenburg rooms.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Expect to pay $1,000 or more round trip from Atlanta to Zurich, Switzerland.

About Lake Constance

The Lake Constance hiking trail is about 165 miles, and the cycle track is about 180 miles around the shoreline. Bike rentals are available in most towns; the motorized Swiss Flyer is available from Rent a Bike (www.rentabike.ch in French and German).

Swiss Pass and Rail Europe passes are available from Rail Europe: 1-888-382-7245, www.raileurope.com. Purchase your rail pass before you leave the United States.

The flexible Bodensee Card combines boat passages, some mountain railways and many tourist admissions into one package, available for three, seven or 14 days at tourist information centers throughout the Lake Constance area. www.bodensee-tourismus.com (in German).

Information

• Switzerland: 310-260-2421, www.myswitzerland.com

• Austria: 212-575-7723, www.austria.info

• Germany: 212-661-7200, www.cometogermany.com

Betsa Marsh, author of "The Eccentric Traveler: A World of Curious Adventures," is a Lowell Thomas Award winner from the Society of American Travel Writers.