32/3 Champagnol, thence descending upon 1 1/2 Sion (Route 59). ROUTE 41. THUN TO VEVEY, BY THE SIMMENTHAL; BATHS OF WEISSENBURG, SAANEN, CHATEAU D'OEX, AND GRUYÈRES;— FOOTPATH OVER THE DENT DE JAMAN. 24 1/2 stunden =80 1/2 English miles. The road through the Simmenthal has only recently been made practicable for carriages. It is a little longer than the highway by Berne and Freiburg, Route 42. The entrance to the Simmenthal lies between the Stockhorn on the rt. and the Niesen on the 1., and is approached from Thun by the road along the margin of the lake, and the banks of the Kander, as far as its junction with the Simmen, a little below the picturesque castle of Wimmis, which our road passes on the 1. 31/2 About two miles farther on, "the house of the pastor of Erlenbach indicates, by its neatness, the extreme comfort of its internal arrangements. Large airy rooms and a capital German library, with the society of the worthy pastor and his wife, offer many inducements to a lover of quiet and romantic scenery. The clergymen in this neighbourhood are all willing to receive boarders at the very moderate rate of 4 or 5 Louis a month. From this parsonage Latrobe started on those alpine expeditions which he has described in so admirable and interesting a manner in his Alpenstock (an excellent English guide with a foreign name). The Stockhorn rises almost immediately behind the village of Erlenbach."-(Inns: Löwe and Bär).—L. 11/4 Weissenburg "has a good inn, where mules may be hired and chairs, with bearers, to convey persons, who do not choose to walk, to the Baths of Weissenburg, distant between 2 and 3 miles from this. There is an ascent immediately on leaving the village, but after that the path winds through the most beautiful and picturesque defile, narrowing at every step into a profound chasm, till suddenly the Bathhouse, singularly situated in its recesses, bursts upon the view. This large building is placed in a little nook between the boiling torrent Büntschi and the rocks, barely space sufficient for the house and baths. In this retired spot the traveller is surprised to find himself surrounded by a crowd of peasants. In July there were 75 of that class, and 30 of a higher class of visitors later in the year the latter preponderate. It is difficult to imagine how they pass their time in this solitude. Three weeks is the "cure" or period allotted to the trial of the remedy of the waters, which are sulphureous, and are supposed to be most efficacious in removing all internal obstructions. Great must be their power to induce patients to remain in so melancholy a place; yet the scenery around is highly picturesque, but inaccessible to all but stout climbers, except along the road to Weissenburg. The source is situated about 1/2 a mile higher up in the gorge, and the water, which has a temperature of above 22o Reaum., is conveyed to the baths in wooden pipes carried along the face of the precipice. "The bath-house is entirely of wood: the food is said to be coarse but good; table d'hôte at 12; salle à manger large but low; bed-rooms small. The whole expense, baths included, 9 fr. a-day for the superior class, and about half for the peasants."-L. Some way up the ravine the peasants have formed a pathway out of it to the upper pastures, by cutting notches, or rude steps, in the face of the rock, and partly by attaching ladders to it. By this means they scale a dizzy precipice between 200 and 300 feet high. The pedestrian bound for the upper Simmenthal need not retrace his steps to Weissenburg, as there is a short cut direct from the baths to Oberwyl, on the high road. The Simmenthal is thus described by Inglis: "I have seen few parts of Switzerland more beautiful than this valley; no part of it so riante. I should think it must be impossible to travel through it without being conscious of an inward cheerfulness; it is fruitful, smiling, abundant, beautiful. There is no sublimity to be seen, scarcely even anything of the picturesque. The hills, which slope gracefully back, are covered to the summit with a varied carpet of meadow, wood, and corn. Houses, hamlets, and villages, lie thickly along the banks of the river, which flows through a succession of orchards and gardens." 2 Boltingen-(Inn: Bär;)—a village situated 2600 feet above the sea, a little to the S. of the old castle of Simmeneck. The river is crossed three times before reaching 2 1/3 Zweisimmen (Inns: Löwe; Bär;)-a village situated at the junction of the great and lesser Simmen. The castle of Blankenburg crowns the height about a mile above it. The road now quits the Simmenthal, and, turning to the S.W., crosses an elevated track of marsh land, till it descends upon 21/4 Saanen (Fr. Gessenay)-(Inns: Grosses, and Kleines Landhaus;)-the principal place in the pastoral valley of the upper Saane (Sarine), whose inhabitants are almost exclusively cattle-owners, or occupied in their dairies, and in manufacturing most excellent cheese, exported to all parts of the world as Gruyères cheese. A kind peculiar to the valley, and which is too delicate to bear exportation, is called Fötschari-käse. A mile below Saanen the road passes out of Berne into Canton Vaud. German, the language of the upper extremity of the valley, is soon exchanged for a French patois, in the lower portion, which is called Pays d'en haut Romand. The first Vaudois village is Rougemont (Germ. Retchmund). Its château was formerly a convent. 2 Château-d'Oex-(Inns: L'Ours; la Maison de Ville;)a village of 612 inhabitants, 3030 feet above the sea, lately rebuilt after a conflagration which almost entirely consumed it. The road next crosses the Saane, and traversing the narrow pass of La Tine, reaches 2 Montbovon, which Byron calls "a pretty scraggy vil→ lage, with a wild river and a wooden bridge:" it is situated in Canton Freiburg. A path practicable for mules, over the pass of the Dent de Jaman, descending upon the lake of Geneva above Montreux, will bring the traveller to Vevey in 6 stunden=102/3 miles. Byron, who crossed it, describes the whole route as "beautiful as a dream:' "The view from the highest points (we had both sides of the Jura before us in one point of view, with alps in plenty) comprises, on one side, the greatest part of Lake Leman; on the other, the valleys and mountain of the canton of Fribourg, and an immense plain, with the lakes of Neufchâtel and Morat, and all which the borders of the lake of Geneva inherit. "The music of the cows' bells (for their wealth, like the patriarch's, is cattle) in the pastures, which reach to a height far above any mountains in Britain, and the shepherds shouting to us from crag to crag, and playing on their reeds where the steeps appeared almost inaccessible, with the surrounding scenery, realised all that I have ever heard or imagined of a pastoral existence :-much more so than Greece or Asia Minor, for there we have a little too much of the sabre and musket order, and if there is a crook in one hand, you are sure to see a gun in the other :-but this was pure and unmixed -solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went they played the "Ranz des Vaches" and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately repeopled my mind with nature."-Byron's Jour nal. The Dent de Jaman is 4500 feet high. The carriage-road to Vevay makes a very long detour from Montbovon, descending the valley of the Saane, and passing at the base of the Moleson (6181 feet), the highest mountain in Canton Fribourg. 2 Gruyères (German, Greyerz)-Inns: Stadthaus; Lilie, said not to be good. This dirty little mouldering town of 375 inhabitants, is built on a hill, the top of which is crowned by the Castle, one of the most extensive and best preserved Leudal monuments in Switzerland. Its owners, the Counts of Gruyères were sovereigns of the surrounding district, down to 1554, when the family became bankrupt, and thus forfeited the lordship, so that their last descendants died in a trange land. It is now occupied by the bailiff of the district. The gloomy antiquity of the interior corresponds with the picturesque character of its watch-towers, battlements, loopholes, from without. The walls are 14 ft. thick, the halls vaulted and dimly lighted by small windows: in one hall is a fireplace at which oxen were roasted whole. The torture chamber Still contains (or did till within a few years contain) the rack which had been used since the beginning of the present rentury, to inflict punishment. If tradition be credited, the castle was founded in the 15th century, by the chief of a Vandal horde. The language spoken by the people of the district, a dialect of the Romansch (called, in German, Gruverin-Welsch), is thought to prove their descent from the Burgundians. It is a subject worthy the attention of travellers. The district is also famous for its cheeses, and supplies from its rich pastures a great part of the 40,000 centners (cwt.) of cheese which Canton Fribourg manufactures yearly, and which is chiefly exported under the name of Gruyères. The church of St. Thomas is remarkable for its antiquity. The inhabitants of the town are a lazy set, many of them pensioners of a very rich Hospital here. The watch-tower of La Tour de Treme was an outpost of the Counts of Gruyères. 1 Bulle-(Inns: Cheval Blanc; Maison de Ville, said to be good ;)-one of the most industrious towns in the canton. It contains nearly 1500 inhabitants, and is the chief depôt for the Gruyères cheese, made in the valleys of the Saarine and of Charmey. It is distant about 18 miles from Fribourg, and the same from Vevey. Our course now turns S. along the high road between these two places, skirting the W. base of the Moleson, to 4 1/2 Chatel St. Denis-(Inn : Maison de Ville;)-a picturesque village, with an elevated castle on the I. bank of the Vevayse. Half a mile S. of it the road enters Canton Vaud. A gradual descent towards the beautiful lake Leman, conducts the traveller to ROUTE 42. BERNE TO LAUSANNE, BY FREYBURG. 17 stunden = 55 3/4 Eng. miles. A diligence runs daily, in about 14 hours. The road is hilly, but an improved line to Freyburg is nearly completed (1838). Quitting Berne by the gate of Morat, flanked by its two bears, we traverse a fertile, but not very interesting country. At Neueneck, where there is a good inn (the Hirsch), the stream of the Sense, which separates Canton Berne from Freyburg, is crossed. About 4 miles lower down this stream is Laupen, famous for the battle in which the Swiss Confederates, under Rudolph of Erlach defeated the mailed chivalry of Burgundy and Suabia, in 1339. At Neueneck a steep ascent commences, to surmount which Vorspann are required. The gauze wings and dark dress of the female peasantry of Berne is exchanged for broad-brimmed, flapping straw hats and red petticoats; while the numerous crosses at the road-side announce a Catholic canton. The appearance of Freyburg from the Berne road is singularly striking and picturesque, as the road, winding round the shoulder of the steep hill overlooking the valley of the Saarine, brings the travellers suddenly in view of its antique battlements and numerous towers, crowning the summit of a precipitous rock on the opposite side of the gorge. Near the top of the hill is seen the Jesuits' Pensionnat, a staring modern building, like a manufactory, with 5 stories and many windows; not far from it the Jesuits' college and convent; next, the Gothic tower and the church of St. Nicholas; beyond appears the suspension-bridge, hung by 4 ropes of iron across the river, and linking together the two sides of the valley. Previous to its construction the only way of reaching the town from Berne was by descending the steep hill on the one side, and following numerous circuitous zig→ zags which led to the water side. The road then crossed the river 3 times by 3 different low bridges, after which it immediately ascended another slope equally steep. A diligence, or heavy carriage, performing this meandering and difficult route, required not much less than an hour to pass through the town; at present the traveller rolls luxuriously over this beautiful bridge, and without either ascending or descending, is transported in 2 minutes through a breach formed in the old houses, on the edge of the precipice, into the centre of the town. A moderate toll of half a batz for every person, and one batz for each horse and carriage, is paid on crossing. |