Continuing a theme…. Switzerland is not France.

I started writing this in Vevey on Sunday the 11^th September. From Vevey we have walked to Aigle, and are now in St Maurice….. correction, the Franciscan WiFi didn’t work so am posting this on arrival in Martigny….. (14^th September)

In Switzerland there are shops open even on Sundays, and bars, and restaurants, too. In fact, most places, even quite small villages, often have shops and a bar, which is wonderful. They also have a lot more benches and other seats in public places (often with shade, and there are actually public loos all over the place, too!). This might not seem all that interesting but we have walked through North and Eastern France feeling glad when we found a bus shelter with a seat where we could sit and have our lunch out of the sun (or the rain) and there were about two places we walked through in a month where there were toilets (not including the rare occurrence of a bar, of course). Sorry about the pilgrim-centred obsessions…

There is a slight feel of temporal flashbacks with some places we enter, where it feels a bit like the nineteen seventies is still lurking in the woodwork, but in a nice way, and the people in bars, restaurants and some shops have large leather bags which contain lots of money. Yes, they still handle the stuff and, as Swiss Francs are still using a lot more coins than other currencies (as well as small change they have one, two and five Franc coins), the bags are full of silver…. It is quite strange and it was not until Alison mentioned that they seem to have not been affected by Covid in the same way as the rest of us that I realised why it seemed so strange.

For the last couple of years a huge number of the French boulangeries have little cash machines in their shops so, if you want to pay by cash the person serving you types in the price, you feed your cash into the machine and the change rolls out of the bottom. “look, no hands!” and in the UK it is almost universal to use a card now, but the Swiss like handling their currency.

Other things strike you as you go. Yes, the trains and buses are all well sorted and run as frequently on Sundays pretty much as they do on Tuesdays, there are differences in the food and the streets have different styles of architecture, etc. too. But while seeming to drive much faster here, Swiss drivers also always stop for you at the many (yellow) zebra crossings. Things are expensive here (of course) so, in restaurants they have 50cl bottles of wine as 75cl bottles are a bit too pricy for general dining purposes….

It feels like a very civil as well as civilised country.

We were in our hotel late yesterday afternoon (Saturday) and I heard a couple of short shouts so I looked out the window. Down below on the street I noticed two motorcycle police and a couple of police vans stopping traffic. Along a side street I saw a few police approaching on foot.

Very rapidly, the police were everywhere and the streets were full of waiting cars and buses. But nothing was happening. Then, at the crossroad the lights changed and the protesters walked across and along the road below, carefully monitored by police. At the back of the protesters I could see what looked like one of the organisers talking with a police officer as they went by. There must have been almost three dozen people in the group.

Normal service resumed soon after.

Well, another difference with other countries is that Switzerland has regular polls on different subjects as part of their political management of the country. So, as we were walking through the countryside we could see posters telling people to vote “No” with regard to the proposal about animal husbandry – they don’t understand, was the general view there. In the city it was mainly the other way round, saying they should stop farming animals intensively – animal welfare is more important, was the general theme. Other votes were due, too, on more obscure Swiss things….

The other thing that is noticeable here is the very multi-ethnic feel of the place which makes it a lot nicer to be in, somehow. It is not a monocultural place, which, I confess, must have been one of my assumptions because I have been surprised by it.

The other thing, which is obviously a function of its small size, is that we went from a very rural part of France to a very rural part of Switzerland but, whereas the French villages and towns were remote and really did feel like they were not part of and very distant from the centre of power in their country (we heard that a lot from people we spoke to), their rural neighbours in Switzerland clearly had a completely different experience. They may have been rural and did have differences with their urban counterparts, but they acted as if, and actually were also close to the centre and just as involved and connected as their city counterparts.

Now, that sounds pretty obvious when you write it out, but it shows something of not just the power of geography in people’s lives, it speaks to a need for a different way of organising things for people in larger countries. It really argues the case for subsidiarity. And with modern communications, no one is really far from the centre unless their lines of communication have been blocked… communication and connectivity/involvement should not be down to geography/distance.

So, this country is different and we are still learning as we go.

It is also a stunningly beautiful place with pretty good cities (beware, Lausanne is a city of several layers with the lake side areas and then a few very steep hills housing the rest of it. Our hotel was in the Old Centre (well, the medieval city, the lakeside is where the Roman city was established but hills are easier to defend) so we walked from the lake shore for a couple of kilometres mainly up very steep roads, then crossed an amazing bridge from one hill to the next to get to our hotel. Of course, google maps didn’t give us a clue about this. We should have done more research…. Especially since, as it is a Swiss city, Lausanne has an amazing public transport network that includes buses, electric trolley buses and a Metro system that includes what is basically a partially underground funicular railway system…. And the hotel gave us free tickets for the system, too, so we took the Metro back down the hill in the morning.

A short confession now follows. On our arrival at the bottom of the metro we emerged onto streets that had all been cordoned off. There was some sort of race about to commence and we were on the wrong side of the road. We walked up and down trying to find out what to do, I had seen a man slip across the road using two parts of the barriers that were not properly fixed, so I looked around, couldn’t find any other solution, so I ushered Alison through the barrier, trotted across the road, found the other loose one and we went through.

As I was reinstating the barrier a young man in a uniform and fluorescent tabard shouted at us and told us off. There were official places to cross, we should have done the proper thing. We were acting unlawfully. We apologised, told him he was the first person we had seen of any sort of authority and wouldn’t do it again! We had been very bad people – and on a Sunday, too.

Turns out it was a triathlon race and no one was expected along that road for quite a long time. But that was not the point, was it?

So we headed for the lakeside path and began to enjoy one of the most entrancing day’s walks we have had in a long time.

The mist cloaking the mountains on the other side of the lake were dissolving as we walked East towards the sun. This felt very much like we were walking along the Mediterranean coast but with only a gentle lapping of water on the shore. The houses, bars, restaurants, boat yards and marinas, bathing beaches and gardens all felt and looked like familiar parts of the South of France or Ligurian Coast but with the mountains on the south of the lake emerging from the haze. Small towns glinted from their narrow perches at the bottom of the mountains and boats slid gently across the almost still water. The elegant ferry cruised out and passed us creating a bow wave that produced something like real waves splashing against the stones on the shore.

Then, as the afternoon sun began to really dig in to our skin, we left the shore and climbed short but very steep paths into the main area of vineyards of this area. Another stunningly beautiful place to walk, with the lake far below and the very steep slopes tightly banked with rows and rows of vines creaking with huge bunches of golden or black grapes. Little villages dotted the hillside and the railway line, down closer to the shore added flashes of colour as different types of trains and carriages quickly slid past. The grape harvest was just beginning and we could see people far below doing the work while, up where we were, there were workers driving noisy little tractors along the paths shifting loads of plastic crates and setting up the series of monorails to carry little carriages up or down and along the terraces to collect the picked grapes. And, of course, the mountains were now sharply in focus, the sun catching every curve and crag and offering us an extra spectacle both across the lake and all the way down on both sides to the end where we were headed. At one point another steamer ferry hooted its horn and a passing train answered it with its own horn and we could hear people whooping and cheering on the boat far below. Then, with the sun at its zenith and our need to sit down and eat and drink reaching a vital point, too, we encountered a level area with some shade and benches and a young man in a wooden shack who was selling plastic glasses of cold white wine. So we stopped, drank some of the elixir and ate our sandwiches in the shade. It was glorious!

Vevey, our night stop, is a seaside resort on a lake…. It is where Charlie Chaplin lived the latter years of his life and they are very proud of it, here. They were amazed when we said we lived close to where he was born and brought up as a child, and that we had walked from there to here. The pilgrim stamp from the hostel we stayed in has Charlie featured on it!

The walk from Vevey to Aigle and on to St Maurice has been both varied and continues to be spectacular. We expect to be delighted with Switzerland for a few more days to come. We expect to reach the hostel at the top of the St Bernard’s Pass on the 17^th (next Saturday) and then we descend into Italy for the next phase in our adventure.

Just one more thing I will add to the notes about the last couple of days.

Firstly, we discovered that the wine the Swiss produce is very nice and, when I get some decent internet connection I will research the grapes as well as the wine in a bit more detail. The two main grapes have been or companions on a number of sections of our walk, with rows and rows of big, juicy golden grapes and then large bunches of very dark, almost black grapes.

Of course, these are all being grown commercially and we have refrained from sampling any of these fruit – especially since the harvest has just started and we do not want to be even a minor source of problems – we keep our distance and admire (even when we are walking through the vineyards themselves).

But yesterday, in Aigle, we arrived at our night stop and our hosts were not around. We phoned them up and eventually were assured they would get to us in eight minutes (very precise) but we were still waiting twenty minutes later (less good and not the usual service here). We were staying in a little chalet that night and the whole of the grounds around the place were filled with vines. While waiting in the shade at the back of the garden I tried a golden grape. It was nice, very juicy and just a bit sweet. I then tried a black grape and it was awesome. Not only was the juice sweet but it had a distinct and excellent flavour, and even the skin was perfumed with the taste and aroma of the grape. It could have been the local variety of their pinot noir and certainly, the flavour echoed their red wine based on that grape.

I felt it prudent not to remark on their grape’s flavour as I suspected that they, too, are a small but active part of the wine production of the area but I vowed to check it out on line when I had a chance.

By the way, my telephone provider doesn’t have a deal with Switzerland and the cost of data on my phone is astronomical. I doubled my limit when I stopped getting any internet on my phone shortly after crossing the border and immediately got a message from my provider that I had less than 5 percent of my allowance left I should have switched off data  roaming before upping my limit, you might say…. But I needed the internet to up the limit in the first place…. Anyway, I have switched off any vague hint of data roaming on my phone and rely on what ever (dodgy) wifi I can find…

The second note is to say that we arrived in St Maurice early as we wanted to visit the Abbey and its remains and it also made sense as we are staying in the foyer/hotel run by the Franciscans here. The site has been a place of Christian worship and place of pilgrimage since the fourth century and a monastery shortly thereafter. It is an amazing place to visit as an archaeological site, as well as an historical church site and it’s museum of ancient reliquaries and other works of art (from the 8^th century onwards) is remarkable. As we had arrived early and was here well before the check in time, we just left our bags with the people in the hotel and went off to explore. It was not until we checked in that we discovered that, as guests, we got a free pass to the Abbey and a number of other local sites, too. So when you come and stay, get your pass first and save quite a bit of money in the process!

A few stats for those interested – we have been on the road now for 58 days. If you count the day spent going over to Calais on the boat, we have had three rest days (Laon and Besancon were the others) so we are a bit short on rests. We have covered around 1,281 kms from London to here and there is approximately 1,087 kms left to Rome. Of the 58 days, we have spent 49 days in mainland Europe so we have 41 days left before we have to leave. We expect to get to somewhere between Lucca and Siena before we turn around and that is without taking into account any other rest days we might have (as I said, we should be resting more) and it doesn’t account for any other issues we might face…. So, we still don’t know how far we will go yet and we will just keep going and see what the journey has to offer. So far, it has been amazing.

Finally, I have deliberately avoided to mention anything about events in the UK because my last post went out before I knew the news and we are here, not there.

I just wanted to end by saying that we continue to reflect and pray on all of the events in the UK (and elsewhere) and that our prayers are for peace in all of its forms. I understand that the recent events have offered many an opportunity to take part in expressing sadness and grief that extends back into the last few years as well as today. Times when people were denied the opportunity to express their grief publicly and so, I pray that this is a restorative and healing process for everyone, no matter what their situation is.

Since leaving home, we have spent a lot of time reflecting on loss; personal loss of loved ones, loss of close friends, shared loss through tragedies and so on. It is a journey, and, like our pilgrimage, our final destination is far from being clear. But what we can do is we can share the hope we constantly find as we move along the road.   

All I have to do now is find a selection of photos from the uncompromisingly huge number of fabulous views we have enjoyed in the last few days. You will note that there looks to be two photos of large stone tablet carved with some knot-work designs, one at the start and one at the finish. They look similar because they are of a similar age. The first is from an abbey in Romanmotier about 15 Kms short of Lausanne and the other one is from St Maurice. Both are dated to the mid 8^th century and are awesome. They are the front panels of ambos, so the place where the Old and New Testament was read from and, in both cases, they may have been seen and admired by Sigeric, the Archbishop whose record of his journeys to Rome from Canterbury are the inspiration for the route we are walking and, very likely other famous people too, including King Alfred the Great, who went to Rome twice …..