From Switzerland, looking back towards Germany.
I sort of just walk over the border. I just walk in. Dissatisfied with the casualness of this I go back to the border and see if anyone wants to look at my passport. I point out the date and place of my birth but they do not need to stamp my passport anymore. The tranquility of the 21st century. I walk into Switzerland. The sky is bluer here, the water clearer, the fish in the water look happier, the farmers smile, the dogs dont bark, the shade seems cooler, the cherries more scarlet. And the hills, steeper. But for this thundery haze from this small peak I would be able to see the highest peaks in three countries. This glorious dappled light and these calm bees. I Walk down the hills under the shade of thunder clouds forks flash in my mind, too fast to see, I scuttle across the fields, aluminium strapped to my back. I walk into Schaffhausen, Switzerland. I sit down and I sit down and I sit down, And I sit.
Stuhlingen, Germnay, is literally on the border, its just the other end of town, I wake up late, casual, look round town a little, picking up pickles and trying to find a plug converter. There are little footpath signs that have in km the distance to places like Schleitheim, Hemmental, and Schaffhausen, they all have a little (CH) in brackets after them. Confederatio Helvetica. Switzerland. This is as exciting as it is surreal, and as it is normal. Im just going for a walk, just 20km or so, nothing too taxing, a hill in the way but really, I feel like a crow flying to whom borders are meaningless, a gesture that exists for maps and for language but matters little to rivers, or to trees, the air or the birds. Walking flattens nations, disempowers them. I just walk in. The border guards are busy talking to a man in a Jaguar and I just walk in. This is certainly unsatisfactory. I want someone to notice me for once, so I turn back and go and knock on the little door of the booth. They notice my place of birth and the date, I ask for a stamp in my passport but they don’t even have a stamp anymore, only airports or international trains they explain. Their English is excellent, they wish me a happy birthday and a good days walking. I make for the beginning of my route, the town of Schleitheim, then Hemmental, then Schaffhausen over the hill line. I follow the road for a couple of kilometres, breathing easliy, wave at a few farmers in a few fields, tending vineyards, it is hot, the sky is a crisp clear blue rising forever. The buildings have an air of age to them, the traditions of the place seep out of the very ground.
I had forgotten, really, that Swiss-German is an entirely seperate language. At a shop I visit in Schleitheim the people in the shop smile so warmly, they say words that are incomprehensible to me, but that feel honest and welcoming. I buy a yoghurt, a small lump of Gruyere and an apple and a banana. I walk through the village, the wealth adorning its church spire, glittering, the multicoloured tiles that pattern the roof. Past a farm on the edge of the village I sit in a small orchard no fences, in the shade of a cherry tree, rich with fruit, smothered in wasps. I eat the yoghurt, rich deep cream. I eat handfuls of cherries bursting with juice. I watch an eagle circle the sky from here across to Germany. Back and forth. The clouds build across the border. But this crisp blue holds above me. I turn to climb the hill beyond. The Randen range, a small line of steep edged mountains, just beneath the 1000m mark. Just hills here. But the steepest hill I have climbed, it rises 300m in little over 1 km, up through broadleaf, birches and beeches, oaks, the dappled light glints off my sweat drenched forearms. I have to down tools several times, using my rucksack as a seat. It gets so steep it switch backs and turns to rocky paths. Loose white stone, that shatters into jagged shapes so easily.
The peak of the hill is still crowned with trees, no breaks for a view, however, the swiss have built a high tower that reaches 20 metres to above the tree line so people can see what they can see. It is a spiral of metal stairs with viewing platforms at halfway and the peak. Etched metal maps of all the peaks you could see were it not for this thundery haze. The matterhorn, Mont Blonc, The Feldburg, The Great Ballon. The swiss alps, the french alps, the black forest and the vosges. I look into that haze. I crossed the Vosges in three days, I spent five days in the black forest, and I will visit the alps ere I leave this place. I have amazed myself. I have tortured myself too.
Just the other side of the peak is a campsite swiss style. A place for picnics and barbeques, there is a tipi, little stools carved to look like mushrooms positioned round campfires, a bus timetable, no road, picnic benches that could seat a hundred youngsters. I sat in the tipi for a moment before moving on through the forest, down a track, one white rock in my pocket. I look at places on google earth and cannot believe I walked through them, a small gathering of fields just past the forest, incongruously called Chesterfield, where forks of lightening flashed quickly through the sky, and I made for the shelter of the forests. I still burst out laughing with disbelief even now. I sat on a bench for a while there, listening to the roar of thunders, booming all around but no rain drops. All I want to do is be there again. This forest track turns into a road and this road turns into Schaffhausen, I pass through its outskirts, little kids with uniform rucksacks make their way home from school, its that time of day, it has not rained a drop. I turn for the way that I think will lead me to a youth hostel, and it does, some eccentric castle of a youth hostel, turrets on the corners, gable windows, ping pong tables, an excellent little coffee machine and the kind of staff I could have kissed.
I was exhausted, they put me in a dorm room, and they did not put anyone else in my dorm room, they did my laundry for free. I told them I had walked out from London 6 weeks ago, and that I had walked nearly 700km since then. That I had had to admit defeat in parts of France taking 2 train rides to keep me on schedule, that I had failed, but that I had succeeded in something. Their English was immaculate, I could even mumble a little. I sat down in my room in love with my arrival.
My dorm bay window, Schaffhausen YHA
bramthomasarnold
