All articles filed in Thorgrim54

I completed my second marathon on August 10th. This comes 2 months after my first one, which I wrote about in these pages. This one was the East Cork Harbour Marathon. Unlike the last one which went through Cork City, this one is out in the countryside. I guess that part of what attracted me…

August 1st is the national day in Switzerland. It remembers the birth of the country in 1291 when three cantons united against imperial rule. And so August 1st is also a public holiday. The weather forecast was good, so I had decided to take the next stage of my walk along the Jakobsweg that goes…

The route from Mariastein to Delemont involved an ascent to one of the ridges of the Jura, and approaching Delemont it seemed like there was flatter ground ahead. But it was not to be. The route from Delemont to Moutier involves a higher ridge, with almost 900m of ascent in total. And while there were…

I must confess to getting sentimental at times, and doing things for sentimental reasons. For example, when I was packing my rucksack for my recent walk from Cahors to St. Jean, I came across the T-shirt that I had worn at the start of my walking the French route, from the Swiss border to Chaumont.…

The weather forecast predicted a reasonably good day. There would be rain during the night, but by morning it would be gone. And so I took the tram and bus from Basel to Mariastein. Waiting for the bus I wasn’t sure if the grey skies were the aftermath of the night’s rain, or the prelude…

It may seem odd, but in ten years of living in Basel, I had not visited the monastery of Mariastein. The monastery is a place of pilgrimage in its own right, having been the scene of several reported miracles in the 15th and 16th centuries. And it is only about 20km from Basel, accessible by…

In the early years of the 5th century BC, the expanding Persian Empire was threatening the Greek mainland. The Persians had already captured most of the islands in the Ionian Sea, and had their sights set on Athens. The Athenians knew this, and had a pretty good idea of when and where the Persians would…

“Il n’y a pas de hazard.” It means “Everything happens for a reason”. When I stopped in Sauvelade for lunch and got my Creanciale stamped, that is what the host wrote there. It is the nature of things that the reason is not always apparent, and also there is a difference between reason and cause.…

This was written on the 21st, and posted on the morning of the 22nd. I left the Villa Mouchoux after a good brekfast thanks to my hosts. I really will recommend this gite to any future travelers. My route took me out of the village, past neat farmhouses and into the forest. I passed chateau…

I stayed last night at the Gite d’Etape Domi. There were five travelers staying in the gite, and the proprietor made us most welcome. Dinner was preceded by an aperitif, which was most welcome after walking through the rain for much of the day. And the dinner itself, though not elaborate was most plentiful. It…