A Welshman in Switzerland: Following Richard Burton's Alpine trail

SHELTERED by trees and awash in birdsong, Richard Burton’s grave is bathed in a pocket of sunlight when I arrive at Vieux Cimetitre, Céligny’s old cemetery.

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To describe this place as off the beaten track would be something of an understatement. There's nobody else around - the sort of spot where the only people you might meet are determined dog-walkers or hardy hikers - and even the faint hum of distant traffic is drowned out by the trickle of a nearby stream.

The headstone, a simple mosstinted stone, stands among ivy and ferns; its only words are his name and the years that mattered most: 19251984. At the base sits a small white lantern with Burton’s photograph inside, left by another visitor. Pots of flowers in bright reds, purples and a solitary yellow daffodil bring flashes of colour to the shade of the woods, while a low stone border frames the plot, its top laid with grey pebbles and ringed with neat beds of greenery.

Behind it, a small shrine has been assembled on the cemetery wall. Two ceramic cherubs watch over the grave, and beneath them a note fixed to the stone carries a polite request in French: “Dear visitors, if you notice the plants look thirsty, it would be wonderful if you could give them a little water, There's a watering can and a tap by the cemetery gate” A small Welsh flag printed at the top reminds us that, even here in this quiet corner of Switzerland, the man buried below - in a patriotic red suit with a rugby ball and a book of poetry by his good friend Dylan Thomas, so the story goes - was unmistakably Welsh to the end.

In fact, if you were to describe the surrounding landscape without using clichés like idyllic, scenic and tranquil, you might say it does feel a little bit, well, Welsh. Like a slice of Burton’s native Afan Valley - itself known as “Little Switzerland” for its alpinelike forestry - transposed to the Swiss countryside.