Everyone likes a top 10 list so I thought I’d pull one
together. I’ll post one item in each of the coming days
and invite readers to comment.
1. Hiking trails
There isn’t a nook or cranny of this country that you can visit that’s
absent of hiking trails. And not just some
tamped down paths through the woods. Switzerland
has a 65,000 km system of well-marked hiking routes maintained by the Swiss
Hiking Trail Federation, an organization that has worked since 1934 to develop
a safe and standardized network covering the entire country. They’re posted, classified (according to
difficulty) and timed. The system is
supported by SwitzerlandMobility, a foundation whose slogan is “The network for
non-motorized traffic”. The literal translation
from the original German, “Das Netzwerk für den Langsamverkehr”, would have
been “The Network for slow traffic” which just doesn’t sound fun, so they came
up with something else but it’s not much better. Maybe we could sponsor a contest to come up with something snappier. In any
event, they manage a national network for hiking, cycling, mountain biking,
skating and canoeing and have an App which overlays all of the trails on a relief map along with your current location. http://www.schweizmobil.ch/en/schweizmobil.html It’s really terrific and while
it won’t keep you from falling off the side of a mountain (in Switzerland, that’s
your own business) it’ll help you avoid getting lost.
And let me point out that they mean it with the posted times. Not sure what their algorithm is, but you won't get there any earlier than predicted.
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