My first visit to these prehistoric pile dwellings was Fiave and Molina di Ledro/Italy in 2011 (see my review below). And to say it right away, these are the best (or basically the only) sites to see original remains. Usually, all the remains are under water or in the bog, otherwise none of it would have survived for thousands of years. And often the sites are covered with geotextile and gravel to protect against erosion and mechanical damage. Thus you have to rely on the preserved finds in museums and on replicas of the dwellings and settlements to understand what this WHS is all about. However, the preservation conditions under oxygen exclusion are so good that organic material, food and textiles, has also been preserved. Therefore, a lot is known about the living conditions of these early agrarian communities.

Over the past ten years, I have visited several of the pile dwelling sites, mainly in the eastern part of the Alps. Here is my summary of what to expect from these sites.

My personal pile dwelling highlight was Olzreute-Enzisholz in Germany. In 2016, an archaeological excavation was carried out in Olzreute, which was also open to visitors. In Olzreute, the remains of the dwellings are half a metre deep in the peat bog, and visitors could watch the researchers uncovering the wooden floors and collapsed walls (photo). The work of the scientific laboratories was also demonstrated and explained on site: the determination of plant and bone remains, the method of tree-ring dating and the elaborate conservation of the finds. The main aim of this excavation was to determine the age of the settlements by dendrochronology (2897 BCE was the result). Some of the samples are not suitable for the tree-ring analysis and are discarded - usually… And that's why I have a glass vessel with water on my desk, in it a 5000 years old piece of wood that was once part of a pile dwelling.

In Germany, the pile-dwelling sites are located in the shore area of Lake Constance and in wetlands and smaller silted-up lakes in the pre-Alpine region. The only site where you have a chance to see original piles is Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. It is the largest pile field on Lake Constance and is directly on the lakeshore. An information pavilion and a footbridge for visitors have been built. If the water is clear, you may be able to see the piles; unfortunately, when I visited, the water was choppy and murky. A few hundred metres away is the best place to learn about this WHS: the Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen. The open-air museum shows 23 reconstructed houses, so that one can imagine what these houses from the Stone and Bronze Ages might have looked like. And there are also original finds on display in the main building of the museum.
I can also recommend the Federseemuseum in Bad Buchau. It is located in a moorland and stands on concrete piles, a modern pile dwelling, so to speak. One of the museum's outstanding exhibits is an almost completely preserved wheel made of maple wood dating back to 2897 BCE. There is also an outdoor area with reconstructed pile dwellings.
In Ehrenstein-Blaustein, a ‘Stone Age park’ is currently under construction at the original location in order to make the WHS tangible. In the future, it may be a good opportunity to enter the core zone.

In Austria the only accessible location is the Mondsee site. When the water is clear, wooden posts can be seen from the lakeshore that could be original piles - but I'm not sure. There are three information pavilions on the promenades in the towns of Mondsee, Seewalchen and Attersee, but not at the core zone. In Keutschach/Carinthia, the pile dwelling site is on a shallow in the middle of the lake, and it is not accessible.

The two sites in Slovenia are located close to each other, about ten kilometres south of Ljubljana. There is nothing to see except an information board in Slovenian.

In Italy, besides the two sites already mentioned, I visited the locations around Lake Garda (there is nothing to see) and the easternmost site of Palù di Livenza/Santissima, not far from the Prosecco Hills WHS. The latter offers an archaeological trail with information panels, not really exciting, but you can enter the core zone.

So we have a total of 111 locations, but nothing really worth seeing? Yes, in a way that is true. But there are a few sites where original remains are visible and the core zone can be entered. And if you want to learn more about the history behind these finds there are worthwhile museums to visit.