Toblerones Trail, Sept 24, 2013

Intro

Stephen had picked up an interesting brochure at the hotel the other day, all about the "Sentier des Toblerones", or the "Toblerones Trail".

This looked both interesting and easy.

Interesting because of the following explanation from the brochure:

The "Toblerone" footpath was so named because of the Toblerone-shaped fortifications build during World War II. The concrete "toblerones" form a 10-kilometer line from the foot of the Jura mountains down to Lake Geneva. This path winds its way through a succession of natural beauty spots, following a stream lined by trees, thereby ensuring the preservation of an area of natural interest.

Here are the toblerones that we saw today:

We had seen similar ones on a trip to Germany several years ago, and knew of them as "Dragon's Teeth". They are supposed to be able to prevent tanks from entering.

Those who are interested in this history could check out either the Toblerone Line on Wikipedia or the main Toblerones Line websites.

Back to the brochure, which includes this map. The red lines are the Toblerones Trail. The bottom part is about 10 kms from our hotel.

It's a long trail, so we decided to walk a small section of it, one near the bottom (south) of the map. We parked at the P near the left, and walked to the right. Driving through the town to get to the parking lot was just a bit hairy! Those streets are NARROW!

Our plan was to walk the trail for about 4 kms and then turn around. I figured that I was capable of doing an 8 km walk.

The hike

Close to where we parked, we saw this trail sign, so we knew that we were in the right place.

The trail was of varying quality, from sharing a paved road with cars, to walking on a dirt path in a forest.

A deep dark forest!

For much of it, the path was right adjacent to a golf course!

In fact, while we were walking in the deep dark forest, we were probably less than 10 meters from the golf course!

And in case we didn't quite get it, here is a sign warning us that we might be bonked!

We walked and walked along and through the golf course, with nary a Toblerone in sight. We were approaching the magic 4 km turnaround point, but an examination of the map told us that we could continue and then return to the car by another trail, and it probably would be shorter than going back through the golf course - there were a lot of twists and turns as we walked along the edges of the fairways.

Anyway, around the 5 km mark, we finally found the Toblerones!

The Toblerones

If you have ever had a Toblerone chocolate bar, you understand why these dragon's teeth are given this nickname.

And, of course, a we-were-here shot.

Also in this area was an old bunker.

Which Stephen was able to climb to the top of.

This sign was on one of the Toblerones.

And this sign was on the bunker. There's an app for that!

Our mission was accomplished. We had seen the Toblerones. So we turned around and went back to the car.

This Google Earth shot shows our 10 km (total) trek. The red arrow points to the line of Toblerones. (When I zoomed in, in hopes of seeing them better, they were all fuzzy. Shucks!)

Flora and Fauna

It's always fascinating to see farm animals in what appears to be an urban setting.

Yellow flowers.

Trees changing colour.

Red berries and red leaves.

Flowers in someone's yard.

Unusual things

We saw what used to be a cornfield that had been completely harvested, all except for a couple of stalks still left standing. One wonders why. And how.

Someone stuck a feather into a tree branch. One wonders why.

We passed by a public beach. Nothing too unusual about it, until we saw this marvel of Swiss engineering - even the handicapped can get into the water with a bit of assistance from this funky elevator.

This stele is interesting - and old.

Après trois ans de séjour sur cette terre hospitalière les Vaudois du Piemont partaient de ce lieu pour rentrer dans leur patrie le 16 août 1689. Les enfants de ces héros ont érigé ce monument le 16 août 1889.

After three years of living on this hospitable earth, the Vaudois of Piedmont went from this place to return to their homeland August 16, 1689. The children of these heroes have erected this monument August 16, 1889.

There's more to the story than what is given on this monument - some significant religious persecution and exile. Check out Waldensians on Wikipedia if you're interested.