Mountains that Cross Borders: The Pyrenees & The Alps
Last Updated: 31st October 2024
For a long time, thoughts of exploring either of these mountain chains got dismissed for various reasons. Life circumstances were among these, and I also felt that I had plenty to keep me going in Britain and Ireland. Usual haunts will not be abandoned, but my horizons broadened after a life event and I started to look further afield, so one trip each to Switzerland and Austria came to fruition. They only scratched the surface, so more visits are due when circumstances allow.
Of course, there are plenty of other mountain chains to be found on the European peninsula, but the scale of both the Alps and the Pyrenees probably leaves more than enough exploration for anyone. Given that the latter extends over 490 km while the former forms an arc of around 1200 km in length, it can be difficult to know where to start at all.
The aforementioned dimensions should put anyone in their place, so it is best to tame ambitions and be satisfied with a sample if only a few visits are possible. One person who was going to take on the immense Via d'Alpina over the course of a year was thwarted when the enormity of what she was attempting hit home. In the end, she sensibly stuck with exploring one end of the Alps. For any first-timer, I reckon that could be how it needs to be, and I cannot recall how much exploring of the Alps this person had been doing anyway.
Making a Start
That enormity has me wondering where one might get started on any of these, and it really hit me while sat on the floor with my back against a bookcase in the Manchester Deansgate branch of Waterstones book store when perusing walking guidebooks for Alpine mountain ranges. Since then, various inroads have been made, all the while thinking back to those first excursions around Scotland.
There was a time when I hardly knew Britain, so that seems opportune to ask how I got to know the place. Being based in locations like Edinburgh, Skipton and Macclesfield certainly helped because I was near many attractions. That made an iterative approach using guidebooks and the web work, and it allowed knowledge to build over time. What hit me when I looked towards continental Europe was how much I was trying to do at once.
The temptation is to do an overview and then drill down from there. First surveys of the web revealed a number of websites where those first details could be acquired, and here is a table with a summary:
| Website | Andorra | Austria | France | Germany | Italy | Lichtenstein | Slovenia | Spain | Switzerland |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Wikitravel | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| World Travel Guide | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Lonely Planet | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Rough Guides | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y |
| BBC News | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Every "Y" above is a link taking you to an article or a section on any of the listed web portals. They do have a use when working why the existence of places like Slovenia had not lodged in my memory, but you do have to watch that you do not get too much generality at once. That partially was the cause of my conundrum.
Of course, these are just bare introductions and anyone needing to take things further before a visit. Practicalities like travel and accommodation need sorting, as well as things to see and do. Those take a little more country by country investigation and what follows is a section for each country since France hosts both mountain chains. Andorra and Spain are the other countries that have shares of the Pyrenees while the Alps extend east from France with Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy and the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia all having Alpine ranges of their own. In between Austria and Switzerland, we also have the Principality of Lichtenstein, with its own Alpine scenery.
Searching for Good Books
Another upshot of facing destinations in nine countries at once is that there can be countless books that need consulting. Of course, a library can be consulted to save on the financial outlay, but looking through books takes time too, so here are a few ideas that I have found helpful so far.
Initially, I considered that overviews would be of use and, since walking through mountain landscapes is my interest, I began with Walking in the Alps by Kev Reynolds and that was followed by a title from Cicerone's World Mountain Ranges series called The Swiss Alps, again by the late Kev Reynolds, that finally guided me towards Switzerland with its good transport system and its well-signed paths. In so doing, I was not floating over Central Europe any more but had landed somewhere, albeit in a virtual sense.
The cause of that was perceiving the prospect of paths and tracks, allowing a range of abilities to explore an area. That is attractive because it means that independent walkers can make their own choices and use their discretion regarding a walking route. After all, many a guidebook extols the virtue of high mountain routes, so it's good to see more accessible possibilities shared too. There are different grades of walking, and it is too easy to be blind-sided by the exceptional that would reach greater heights and to miss what is lower down that would be just as pleasant.
With Switzerland somewhat opened up, it was France that followed suit. While at secondary school, there were two weeks spent around Saint-Malo on a school language trip, but the Alps are at the other end of France, so it was handy that some chapters of the Rough Guide to France are revealing too and there are ones on the Pyrenees as well as the Alps and Franche-Comté. Both are available in the imprint's Snapshots series, too, which is an added bonus because you can have them as Kindle editions for a reasonable price. What general guidebooks like these do is identify what locations can be used as a base for further explorations. This is what Kev Reynolds and others call centrist, in that you find a base where you stay for a while and see what is around it. There also is travelling around and that is called ex-centrist in the same circles. To me, the first approach sounds more sensible for now.
So far, my enquiries have led me beyond starting points that I have uncovered, and I plan to add to my knowledge over time rather than all at once. That means finding somewhere to start, and it looks as if I have found that now. Any next steps will involve going a little deeper, and I am happy to wait for a possible plan to come together.
