Day 9 – The Vineyards Of Valais

This year saw an unusually late spring throughout Switzerland – we were told that it was the latest in over 40 years. What this meant for us was cloudy and rainy weather, at least for the first of our two weeks in country. It also meant that Cindy became an expert on using on-line weather forecasts and real-time webcams to find daily destinations with the best possible weather. In this case by going south we were able to get on the other side of the Alpine massif that separates the Rhone Valley from the Berner Oberland. This line of mountains also separated the weather in a dramatic fashion – we went from overcast and drizzle as we entered the Lotschberg tunnel near Kandersteg (in the canton of Berne) to a mostly sunny and warm day when we exited the tunnel near Goppenstein (in the Canton of Valais).

Our outing started fairly early because we knew that we had a lot of travel ahead of us. We left Brienz just after 7:30 AM, connecting at Interlaken Ost for a train to Spiez. From Spiez we headed south on a DB (Deutsche Bahn or German state railway) InterCity express for Visp. This double-decker streamlined bullet took us through the Lotschberg Tunnel so quickly that we barely had time to get out our coffee thermos. In Visp we changed trains for Sion, arriving there about 9:30 AM. I know that it sounds complicated but the trains and buses are scheduled such that you literally walk off one and onto the next for an almost immediate departure. We found that even a ten minute ‘layover’ seemed excessive once you gained faith in Swiss timing.

Our objective for today was the Valais Wine Trail, also known as the Chemin du Vignoble in French or the Weinweg in German. This trail opened in 2007 and consists of three parallel paths : one for hikers, one for bicyclists, and one that follows the paved roadways for cars and buses. The Wine Trail meanders through a veritable viticultural playground for almost 40 miles between the Valais towns of Leuk and Martigny. As we would soon see firsthand, the vineyards in this area of Switzerland form an almost continuous ribbon along the southern-facing slopes of the Rhone River valley.

We decided to walk a smaller, more manageable section of the Wine Trail that is known for having excellent scenery. This section connects the towns of Sion and Sierre, both of which are on the floor of the Rhone River valley along the A9 motorway, a.k.a. the Autoroute du Rhône. They also share beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and long histories spanning many centuries.

Sion, with a population of about 30,000 people, is the capital of the Swiss canton of Valais. The skyline of Sion is dominated by twin castles, Valère and Tourbillon, that sit high atop two very distinct rocky outcroppings that rise from the valley floor. Sion is a ski hub in winter with good access to the Valais resorts of Verbier, Crans Montana, and Zermatt. A bonus is that you can see all the way down the valley to Mont Blanc in France on a clear day. A rather interesting factoid, at least for winter sports junkies like us, is that Sion bid unsuccessfully for the Winter Olympics three times in recent years – they lost to Turin in 2006, Salt Lake City in 2002, and Innsbruck in 1976.

Sierre is only about half the size of Sion. It is the gateway to numerous tourist attractions, most notably Crans Montana, a popular skiing destination. Ready access to hydro-electric power has made Sierre somewhat more industrial than most places we visited this trip. One very curious thing about Sierre it straddles the official French / German language border and as such even has two official names – Sierre in French and Siders in German. See the CH Info page for more about the four official languages of Switzerland.

From our starting point at the Sion train station we took a quick Postal Bus ride up to the Sion Brasserie stop, rather unoriginally named for the restaurant across the street. After finding signage for the Wine Trail and confirming our location we followed a narrow gravel path that climbed steeply up into the vineyards, even passing through a long and quite dark tunnel of grapevines that had us wondering just what exactly we’d gotten ourselves into.

Once in the vineyards we found a somewhat wider and surprisingly level trail that followed the contours of the hillside. The trail paralleled some ancient bisses or irrigation canals that carry the glacial melt lifeblood of this agricultural region. The views were spectacular in every direction, but what was really amazing was the fact that we remained in cultivated vineyards for essentially the entire distance that we hiked today. These vineyards took advantage of every possible patch of open ground no matter how steep the slope or how small the area. Cultivating and harvesting the grapes here is definitely a labor of love, with the emphasis on the word ‘love’.

We descended from the ledge trail a couple of times to pass through quaint historic towns like St. Leonard. It was very interesting to be in these towns with their street and commercial signage in French after being immersed in the strictly German environment of the Berner Oberland for over a week. The only problem we found with going down to visit these towns was the obligatory hike back up the hill to rejoin the main trail overlooking the valley below. We probably gained and lost the same elevation a half-dozen times over the course of the day. These repeated undulations (what we laughingly referred to as interval training) added up to almost 3,000 feet of vertical for the day.

We arrived at the train station in Sierre a little before 3:00 PM having covered a total of 13-1/2 miles. We reversed our route on the train and arrived back at our chalet by 5:00 PM, more than ready to drop our backpacks and shed our boots!
 

Map

Photos

Weather

Meals