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Blog 18 - Switzerland and the Vosges Mountains

Writer's picture: Mark NarramoreMark Narramore

2368 miles (3,810 kilometres) walked so far in 124 days. Average daily mileage: 19.1 miles (30.7 kilometres).


Sorry it has been a while (again, I know!). Lots of miles, lots of places and lots of food have all happened in the interim so here I go:


Switzerland.


I will start by saying that it would be very unfair for this to be used as a review of walking in Switzerland as I didn’t really visit anywhere there that is particularly well known for the walking. I am reliably informed some of the best areas for hiking in Switzerland are in the south and east of the country and I was in the relatively flat western end of the country. I passed through to get a sense of Swiss culture and, for that, I had a nice few days. I started off exploring a few parts around Lac Leman - not Geneva itself as cities still aren’t my thing. At first I was bitterly disappointed by the lack of footpaths but when I accepted that and looked instead for some ‘nice spots’ I realised there was a lot to like about the lake. Firstly, there are LOADS of black kites. I think in the three days I was there I saw more black kites than I have in my whole life, and was even lucky enough to see them diving for fish in the lake. Secondly, the cafe/swim culture in various towns is really cool. They have lots of lake side pop-up type places to get a drink or buy some food and many of these are right near beaches where you can swim in the lake, which I have to say was surprisingly warm for such a big body of water. 



Finally, Lausanne! Possibly my favourite biggish city of the trip so far. It has such a nice atmosphere to the place where somehow everything seems to feel welcoming. The public transport is stereotypically Swiss; always efficient and always on time. Plus there were options for getting places even late on a Sunday evening. The city also has a nice blend of older historical buildings along with some nice modern architecture where the architects have spent some time considering style as well as just practicability. And, like I have already mentioned, it has a very pleasant area down by the lake, perfect for enjoying a crepe. In terms of walking, to the north of the town is a pretty nice forest with lots of natural springs all around the place. I didn’t really find it large enough for me but I am walking silly mileages!


After Lausanne I stayed in Le Landeron which is a nice little place between three other big lakes. Very similar experience to Lausanne with some excellent public transport available - it was so easy that you can’t help reflecting at how poor public transport is in the UK and how it would be so easy to reduce car emissions with some proper investment in it. The lakes were very pretty, towns were nice and characterful and there were some simple but pleasant paths linking them all together. It is one of those places where I think a bike would be amazing as, realistically, most people probably wouldn’t have walked eight miles to visit Neuchâtel, only to have to walk eight miles back afterwards! With a bike, everything would be accessible and there is a lot to see and do.



The Vosges Mountains:


After Switzerland I headed North and back into France, though quite honestly this is like no other part of France that I have seen. It feels like an entirely new holiday! This area has changed hands between the French and the Germans on a few occasions and it has created a rather wonderful blended culture. The only downside is the language! I have no idea what anyone is saying. It is part French and part German, all with a weird accent. The easiest way I can describe it for the English here is imagine you are talking to someone with a thick Scottish accent who is talking in French. Hard enough to understand anyway but with the accent, the foreignness language and the fact that they seem to randomly throw in German words it is really difficult!



The towns here however are awesome! Many of them are up there with my favourites of the trip so far. Most of the ones that I have visited (Lautenbach, Turckheim, Colmar, Ribeauville, Riquewihr and Kayserberg) are on the edges of the Vosges mountain range or slightly out onto the big area of farmland that borders Germany. They all have their own unique charm but the style of buildings in all of them is beautiful. On top of that, the food is sublime. I can’t really put it into words but the blend of French and German style cooking just produces some great dishes. I will also recommend a restaurant called Wistub Suzel in the village of Hunawihr. This was my favourite meal of the whole trip in a cute restaurant which was popular with locals (always a good sign). Nice meaty dishes with potatoes are balanced by nice salads and subtle flavours - it’s like they do dishes that in England would be very heavy and overfilling, but somehow they make it light and pleasant. Sorry - rubbish description but you really should try it!


(I promise there was a lovely salad as well which I forgot to take a photo of!)


Anyway, onto the most important part, the walking: One thing that is brilliant about the Vosges mountains is the ridiculous number of footpaths crossing them. Every mountain seems to have a path running up it on four different sides and it just makes it so easy to make a hike up as you go. I don’t even bother planning whole routes here; I just walk to one nice looking place and then decide on the next one when I get there as I know I will have lots of options of routes.



The whole place is great for wildlife, including a pretty impressive grass-snake which scared the life out of me when it appeared on a narrow track right by my feet. There are also lots of lizards, bugs and birds, including rather beautiful storks! They really are incredible and rather graceful - that is until one landed on a branch which it was too heavy for and both the branch and this massive bird headed south pretty rapidly! Credit to the bird though, it sorted itself out just in time, landed, gave the branch a disgusted look (I may have imagined the disgust) and flew away! 



I also had a day which was one of those memorable ones as it just felt like a massive adventure from start to finish. The evening before I was dawdling around through the level farmland when I looked back over at the mountains. To the north of where I was camping was a big hill (small mountain) with a huge castle on top. It was quite a few miles away so I couldn’t see any detail but I immediately hatched a plan: I decided to try and find this castle, which I knew nothing about, without using any maps or getting any assistance from my phone. I took note of a few geographical features (there were a few mountains in between my campsite and the castle) and set off the following morning. Leaving Ribeauville, which is one of my favourite towns in the area as it is one of the least touristy, I started climbing. I had seen some ruins of castles here as well and they were wonderfully accessible. In England these places would have been barred off with barriers and signs but here they were made fairly accessible and just left for people to explore. There were some nice low clouds giving the broken ramparts and crumbling towers an eery feel but it was great fun. 



After that I climbed up to the summit and just headed roughly north. As much as I could, I stuck to the bigger paths or ones that would take me to the top of a mountain so that I could get a sense of which direction to head in. It rained a bit along the way but that didn’t dampen my spirits as I eventually made it to what turned out to be Chateau de Haut-Koenigsbourg; a rather wonderful restored castle that the public are allowed in. An interesting place with great views, some Hogwarts style architecture and some interesting history - I would definitely suggest paying it a visit if you are nearby. I returned to my campsite and just felt glad to have had such a nice day exploring without the help of guides and maps. There is something very primitive about this style of walking which I love, though, if you are going to try it, make sure you have some way of getting yourself out of trouble if you do get lost!



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