Unterwegs auf Walserpfaden - ein Wanderbuch [Broschiert]

Why be curious about the Walser? Well, for one thing, if you ignore the settlement of North America (which Thomas Jefferson didn't), then the Walser were sort of like the tail end of the Völkerwanderung. Like all Swiss Germans, they're Alemannen, and their language is like a foreign one to me, except that I've visited Walser regions often enough over the years to be able to understand bits and pieces of it. I was able, with a lot of repetition and use of the hands, to communicate with the poet/former school teacher in Formazza, who wrote the poem in the introduction to Wanner's book. She also taught Walser once a week in the local Italian school there.

We first heard about the Walser people in 1/88. We'd gotten bored with skiing after 3 days at Zermatt (we'd driven there only because there was so little snow elsewhere then), and drove over the Simplon Pass to Domodossola looking for adventure. Late in the evening on a cold, snowy day, we looked at the map and saw a road leading up to a dead end preceded by a string of villages. And what could be more interesting than a populated high valley!? After we wound up the narrow, steep road for nearly an hour in Cyrano, Cornelia's 2CV Ente, we passed villages where the signs were suddenly in both Italian and some strange old German dialect. We got a room in a private house in Ponte/Zum Stägg, and then walked to the pizzeria, where the München-loving-Wirt, Toni Ferrara, spoke Hochdeutsch, Italian, and Walser, and told us about the migrations. According to him, the Walser settlers of Graubünden and beyond all passed through Formazza/Pomatt, or Mattertal. This was the beginning of curiosity for us. Formazza was the waystation for the last pioneering movement of Germanic peoples within Europe, if you ignore the Mennonites and others who went eastward in the time of Katerina der Grosse.

I tried in late 5/95 to go from Formazza over the Guriner Furka to Bosco Gurin, the only remaining Walser settlement in Tessin, but turned 50 m. beneath the pass on steep, hard snow and gave up, not knowing exactly where was the path leading down on the other side, or if I could find it. I learned a year later, looking upward to the Furka from Bosco Gurin, that the mountain on that side is relatively gentle and that I could have made it down without a path. However, I was carrrying a tent and about 21 kilos and did not trust my footing too much. Earlier in the valley a farmer had tried to explain to me in Walser dialect how to stay out of trouble after the pass, but I understood nearly nothing of what he told me.

In 8/2000 we drove with our young sons to Formazza, parked the car and hiked along another Walser path/GTA starting upward from Cranza, to Rif. Margaroli and onward to Alpe Devero, and Alpe Veglia, passing new Alms along the way. At Alpe Devero, we were all entrtained by a nice group of singers from Modena. We came down at S. Domenico. Although that path lies just above Formazza, there was no Walser language along the way.

If you like to explore remote regions on foot, then Wanner's nice book may be just the right thing for you. Sorry that this review is not written in Walsertietsch, but ... .