Swiss retrospections : Valais from 20/06 to 01/07/2011, traditions and alpine splendors of summer
- Jean Lacroix
- Mar 6, 2022
- 9 min read
Switzerland, a continental islet?
Switzerland, inside but outside Europe.
Ah! Switzerland!... Behind the walls of its relief is it the secret room of the safes of the world as it is said?
Or the heiress of the famous watchmaking meticulousness whose workings don't hide anything?
Perhaps a key: apart from Japan, which country has erected cleanliness to this level of requirement, relegating even the most exemplary countries to the rank of dumping ground?
Thus, the Swiss toilets.
To the depths of the cantons, every little Swiss toilet seems to have suffered the onslaught of a sanitary Guillaume Tell from which no microbes, no viruses (but COVID has come), no bacteria escape,... a hospital clean room.
But god be praised (if he exists, he cannot be bought, even in Swiss francs), to enter there, no charlotte or disposable overshoes; the cold rigor softens with tiles and earthenware with delicate patterns, warm woodwork with beautiful harmonies, heady and subtle fragrances.
Swiss toilets: a living area, a wellness refuge, the happiness of loners.
A summum of comfort in a tranquility devoid of useless introspections.
But no hasty extrapolation. This cozy isolation alone does not explain the comfortable and prosperous isolationism of the Swiss nation.
Because Switzerland is prosperous, with a prosperity that cannot be shared. A success so persistent that we can not fail to see it.
Between 2010 and 2021, its GDP/capita seems (recent sources are ambiguous) to have gone from 4th to 2nd place in the world when France is relegated from 18th to beyond 20th!!!
However with the highest cost of living in the world after Sweden, according to the very famous and very serious Big Mac index.
Happy French cross-border commuters who go to work there: Swiss salary, French cost of living.
Traditions, folklore and local power
Cantons and communes maintain much more than a village folklore, an affirmation of local power celebrated with solemnity, heavy with representativeness and responsibility.
In Valais, there are the Parades of Corpus Christi.
In Sion, the capital of Valais, the man in civilian clothes has his troops (all volunteers) repeated and ensures with severity the good hold, the synchronism, the cadences, the alignments.
Among the spectators of the parade on June 23 in Savièse, an astonished Little Swiss catches all the admiration of his girlfriend.
An elder of the 70s, well strapped in his uniform and wearing a tight helmet reminiscent of that of former neighboring aggressors dodged by neutrality, parades, the cautious step.
But thank to Switzerland, which at the end of February 2022 set aside its neutrality in the face of Ukraine’s aggression by the russian murderer, the shabby little tsar, Putin!
It is also the affecting innocence of a little girl in her traditional white dress decorated with the flowers of the mountains.
Full of health under his beautiful bicorn with cockade, a young man parades, cambered lower leg, with a smile on his face, in front of young girls who have eyes only for others.
And here are the "Swiss guards", calles here the "papal guard", as a souvenir of the mercenaries that Helvetia sent to Europe and especially to the Vatican in the past.
The northern slope of the Rhone Valley, well exposed to the sun, produces a quality wine, the superb "fendant" (the swollen grain would split under the pressure of the fingers).
Fruity, its taste resembles Sylvaner. But its grape variety (among the 200 others in the area) is none other than Chasselas. Because exported around the 17th century in France in the village of Chasselas near Mâcon, it takes the name, best known for its famous declination in table grapes to the far southwest on the side of Moissac.
Is it this nectar that patiently helped to illuminate the trogne of this fierce soldier, wearing a helmet borrowed from bigger than him?
Even lower, the slow parade in the manner of our legionnaires mixes, right hand at the hip, young boys proud of their uniform and old sappers with Voltarian rictus (Ferney is not so far away).
Crowned children, starry head or surrounded by gold and all white dressed, charming dark hats of ladies with too serious profile, the flowery collar of summer flowers.
A brigadier-chief (?) wobbles, stoic, under the weight of his monumental hat in panache, made of clusters and rainbow feathers, looking a bit like that of the Berber water carriers of the Place Jemaa-el-Fna of Marrakech.
As long as it is extra-hexagonal, the French casually ironizes about this kind of celebration, here in First Empire costume (except the papal guard), shining with well-polished up brass.
Mockingly sarcasms of frustrated Gauls, jealous of the Swiss vote and its direct democracy, of its insolent prosperity, while doubting his own centralizing state and remaining nostalgic for ancient local identities, but saluting the benefits of the euro.
Swiss alpine splendors
The Swiss Alps irrigate Europe. However, Switzerland is not the toilet of Europe, and knows how to control its flows (see the Grande Dixence dam).
Anyway, the splendor of summer is savoured in majesty in the Valais, on the east-west axis of the Rhône, which feeds Lake Geneva before arriving in France.
Below, some examples of these beautiful sites we have visited.
Zermatt
Zermatt already claimed to protect the environment in 2011: the car has to be left in the village of Täsch for a shuttle train that reaches Zermatt in 20 minutes.
In its majestic valley, it seems to be made for all the tourists of the world, including unavoidable Japaneses (before Covid). You only move by walking, biking, by horse-drawn carriage, or in small electric cars, tasteless glass boxes whose batteries are recharged on ad hoc terminals.
Zermatt, very touristic city, however has yet raccards skilfully converted into pseudo-rustic accommodation.
But it's on the superb slopes overlooking the valley that you have to look for, in the hamlets, the beautiful slate roofs, irresistible charm of authenticity.
From here, the magic mountain, the Cervin, 4478m (Matterhorn in German) can be guessed. Because that day, exhibitionist, it removes the bottom ... but not the top.
Sas Fee
Sas Fee is a valley further away, overlooked by its massive glacier.
The village, less invaded, is peaceful, more authentic, with its raccards everywhere.
Then with the Alpin Express cable car, it's Felskinn. From this plateau terminus, here is the "alpine metro": in the mountain pierced by a tunnel at 45 °, a funicular towed by robust cables climbs up to 3500 m.
At the exit, here are the dazzling eternal snows in a circus of 13 peaks at more than 4000m. The Fee Glacier dominates the valley. On a vast platform in the middle of the snow is installed the highest revolving panoramic restaurant in the world.
The nearest peak to which summer skiers head is the Allalin (4027m).
Even not cold. Marlene is in shorts. A luxury poodle delicately puts its clean pads on the snow and leaves nothing behind it but the imprint of its paws..., a real Swiss poodle, passionate about canine ecology.
To the east, beautiful blue-tinged profiles of other background peaks.
Silent contemplation, before the visit of the Ice Pavilion, a cave of 5000 m² dug in the ice: educational information, some works of art, old mountaineers' equipment, and demonic ice sculptures or a caricatured Mickey ; the hell in the coolness of the icy shadow.
Riederalp
On the north slope this time.
To get to the cable-car station, foolishly following a native 4x4 on a short-cut, the slopes are so steep and the switchbacks so sharp that the come back to the horizontal is a relief.
The plunging cable-car reassures by its modernity. Then a chairlift.
In the clear sky, gliding and paragliding enthusiasts describe lazy arabesques with currents and winds.
Opportune clarity of the summits that finally allows to see the Matterhorn, on the other side of the valley, distant, in its total and proud splendor.
Riederalp, pretty village on a small plateau, below the largest glacier in Europe, the Aletsch.
Sumptuous and powerful, it's winding in its bed in trough, and rumbles inside its flanks of torrents descending from all sides.
Along its southern slope, we don't climb high enough to the Moosfluh cable-car station, for seeing the peak of the " young girl" (the JungFrau).
Rhododendrons in bloom, serene summer mountain landscapes would appease the most tortured minds.
To the west above the village, an English lord, the financier Sir Ernest Cassel built a superb neo-Victorian mansion at the very beginning of the 20th century, and became so attached to it that he had a grand piano mounted on the back of a donkey (or man?)!! And invited the young Wiston Churchill.
This is Villa Cassel. Today a reputed place of excellence. Panorama of remarkable beauty, from where you can see the Matterhorn.
In the past, the inhabitants lived here for most of the year in complete isolation, wild people from the mountains, Papuans for the other Swiss, Papuans from glaciers. They will be disturbed by these incomprehensible and futile strangers, mounted there for the sole pleasure of clean air and the wonderful landscapes.
Val d’Hérens
South of Sion, the Val d'Hérens.
Here is a village with chalets, houses, raccards almost all of wood, beautifully decorated, one of the most beautiful village in the Valais, Evolène, surmounted to the north by the tetrahedric peak of Sassenerre (more than 2850 meters).
Roofs of lauze (flat tiles), flowered plots fenced with wooden palisades charm the central street.
Unpretentious, with meticulous care of the presentation, the facades of some raccards present old agricultural tools. With meticulous precision, houses are adorned with trompe-l'oeil, and floral motifs borrowed from the alpine flora.
Going up the valley again to the south, a small lake after 200m of altitude difference from a hamlet called Les Gouilles is a small paradise of colors, the Blue Lake the aptly named, from where the valleys enchant the view.
The sturdy little cows of this region, black coat, short and curved horns, are renowned for their bellicose temperament ; they are even said to be temperamental. Famous fights are organized from which is sacred the queen of Hérens, champion of the Val, pride of its owner.
In the middle of a snack on a grassy slope, we are surprised by a noise of cowbells. Several frisky cows are pursued by an old farmer tannes and agile.
Then suddenly here are impetuous cows which rush down around us, motionless and frightened ; in the dust raised, they have just blithely torn off an electrical barrier.
The winding road crosses the Euseigne Pyramids (the so named place), a narrow limestone crest of “capped columns” coming from the erosion of ancient moraines, like the spine of a monstrous dinosaur.
At their feet graze goats, sharp eye and white beard, which philosophize behind their heavy eyelids.
Cry d’Er
This time above Crans-Montana, on a plateau accessible by cable-car, here is a small hike a little cool on a path in balcony : superb panoramas under almost overcast sky.
After having passed vertical fractures (diaclases) which will collapse one day and having been overtaken by a mountain biker enthusiast climbing on foot, solid calf, folded bike carried on the back for descents of madness, here are our first swiss marmots, short and powerful whistling (without accent) when the intruders approach.
An old chilly marmot warms up on a very horizontal rocky terrace.
Striking landscapes more and more mineral, where nestle incredible wild bouquets.
On the way back to the cable-car, english voices on the mountainside. A climber at practice?
No, two ladies, descended we do not know how on a narrow ledge, blocked there, unable to go up or down.
And who rightly do not like to be photographed.
The station manager, alerted, called a helicopter to rescue them, from Sion 30 km away. Very expensive rescue. As the shadow begins to invade the wall, it arrives and with its nacelle undertakes the rescue at a fixed point, slamming its blades near the wall.
Val d'Anniviers
Elsewhere, there are very beautiful villages in the Val d'Anniviers, including one of the highest inhabited villages in Europe, Chandolin, (1936m) from where the abyss valleys seem bottomless. But what about St-Véran in Hautes-Alpes in France, 2024m?
Then Grimentz with its magnificent raccards (since 1550) and its old and modern chalets, flowered balconies everywhere, wooden lauze (flat tiles) roofs.
Up to the decorated and embellished fire hydrants, and the crosses of the cemetery protected by a kind of V-shaped roof reminiscent of that of the chalets.
A national characteristic declined in the most remote regions, the celebration of the values of the past is manifested by the way of decorating old houses, the most recent chalets, to exhibit ancestral agricultural tools, by the successful way of restoring old buildings within an extremely strict regulatory framework.
Example: the raccard.
This small wooden construction on pillars served as an attic or shed. Just like the "fustes" in the Hautes-Alpes, France.
Isolated from the ground by a free space under the floor, the stored crops were protected from moisture but also from rodents thanks to the circular flat stone supporting the modest or imposing raccard at the top of the pillar.
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