An occasional feature about the places in the John H Watson Canon
It was upon the 3rd of May that we reached the little village of Meiringen, where we put up at the Englischer Hof, then kept by Peter Steiler the elder. Our landlord was an intelligent man, and spoke excellent English, having served for three years as waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. At his advice, upon the afternoon of the 4th we set off together with the intention of crossing the hills and spending the night at the hamlet of Rosenlaui. We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill, without making a small detour to see them.
It is, indeed, a fearful place.
Rosenlaui Bad, a hamlet in the central part of Switzerland, on the right bank of the River Reichenbach. While it is just three miles from Meiringen, it is more than two thousand feet higher in elevation and the walk from Meiringen requires at least three hours via the Reichenbach Falls. Holmes and Watson set off for here from Meiringen.
From The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana, Jack Tracey, editor, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977, p.308.
Rosenlaui itself rates no mention in SWITZERLAND [Karl Baedeker in 1887, in his Switzerland and the Adjacent Portions of Italy, Savoy and the Tyroil hereinafter “SWITZERLAND”]; however, the “Baths of Rosenlaui, located at 4363., is recommended.
From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edited, with Annotations by Leslie S. Klinger, “The Final Problem”, note 69, p. 266.