Walking a marathon from Einsiedeln on the Alpine Panorama Trail

Switzerland has more marked trails than anyone can finish, so we keep a simple rule: if the forecast says the day will be good, we pick a hike and go. This time the pick was the Alpine Panorama Trail, the long route that runs along the northern foothills of the Alps rather than through them, and we decided to push: two stages joined into one day.

An earlier outing had ended at Einsiedeln, the town built around the biggest pilgrimage abbey in Switzerland, a Benedictine house founded in the ninth century and rebuilt in baroque in the 1700s. It is easy to reach, so we started where we had stopped. From there the line ran to Siebnen and on down to Ziegelbrücke in the valley.

Sunday stroll, we called it: a lakeside promenade, a lot of countryside, gentle climbing. Both stages are graded easy. What the grading does not tell you is that the day comes to 40 km. Eight and a half hours on your feet, 800 m of ascent spread so thinly you never notice a climb, which is exactly why you keep going and the distance piles up underneath you.

Here is the thing I took home, and I will pass it on for free: walking a marathon is tougher than running one, because it takes so much longer. A runner is done in a few hours. We were out from morning to late afternoon, and by the end the kilometres had settled into the soles of my feet rather than my legs. Forty kilometres is the better part of a marathon, near enough that I am claiming it.

The reward is the Switzerland the postcards skip: the lake below, hour after hour of open country, a hilltop with a white survey pyramid where you can see all the way across the plain, and a valley station with a train home at the end. No ropes, no lifts, no crowds. If you want a big day that needs no head for heights, this is the format. Start early, and treat the word easy with respect.