Every harbour entrance is a decision about width. Too narrow and a boat cannot be handled in a crosswind; too wide and the swell follows it in and the harbour stops being a harbour.
Lindau’s entrance is narrow, and both sides of it are marked. On one pier head stands a seated lion cut from stone; on the other, a round lighthouse. A vessel coming in lines up between them.
The pairing looks ceremonial and is also practical. Two marks at a known separation give a helmsman the alignment he needs at the moment he can least afford to guess, and a tall pale tower is visible against a dark shore in a way that a pole is not.
The boat in the frame is a scheduled passenger vessel. On a lake with shoreline in three countries, that service is a bus route that happens to float, and the timetable is the reason the entrance has to work in weather that would keep a pleasure boat at home.
