Francois' Day: Safiental


Yesterday was a picture perfect sunny summer day here in Switzerland, perfect for our national holiday.

My wife and I decided on an excursion to the Safiental, a rather remote region of the Canton of Grisons, a German-speaking valley located just between the Rhaeto-romanic-speaking Surselva and Sutselva regions.

Several hundred years ago, farmers from the upper Rhone valley of the Canton of Valais had migrated to various regions within the Cantons of Grisons and Ticino and formed there pockets of German-speaking villages and valleys within the Rhaeto-romanic and Lombardic speaking areas surrounding them. The Safiental is one of those pockets.

We drove by car to Versam:





a picturesque village at the lower edge of the Safiental (Safien valley).

From there, we chose to take the postal bus:



up the valley, because the road is said to be difficult to drive. We rode the bus all the way to the end of the valley, up to 1800 m.a.s., right at the tree line:



The orchids were in full bloom:



and some type of Scabiosae (I don't know exactly which type it was) gave off an intense sweet smell:



The water coming down from the mountains was deep blue and clean:



Even in these remote regions, there are still mountain farms that are inhabited year-round:



The mountains were very pretty:





Lunch was served on the terrace of a small restaurant:



Then we started walking down the valley. There are beautiful houses along the (unpaved) road:







Most houses are richly decorated with flowers:

One more look back to the mountains:



and from now on, the road moved resolutely down-hill:



More pretty houses on the way:













All in all, we hiked 14 km.

Beautiful countryside.

Living here in Sydney I miss the NZ country. Going back in 3 weeks to visit my son and his family, although I don't know if we'll get out into the mountains.