SWISS ROLL

Caroline Mills follows Switzerland's Grand Tour, seeking out its lesser-known gems

- Caroline Mills

I can smell the hay now. Just cut. When farmers feverishly gathered one last crop before autumn.

Sitting in England, writing about Switzerland, I am transported back to touring through some of Europe’s most energising countryside. And I vividly recall the smell of the late summer meadows.

In 2016 Switzerland Tourism launched the Grand Tour of Switzerland, a 1000-mile signposted road trip taking in much of the country and all of its tourist hotspots. I covered it then for Practical Motorhome.

Eight years later, I returned to drive the route again. Except this time, my plan was to avoid the major destinations and focus on the inbetweeners: amazing villages, towns and cities, lakes, mountains and attractions that are less well known. Geneva, Zurich, Interlaken, Lucerne, Davos, St Moritz, Klosters, Zermatt and the Matterhorn didn’t feature on this trip.

I began in one of Switzerland’s least-visited areas, the Jura mountains, picking up the Grand Tour at Oberwil, south of Basel. Unlike the tall alpine peaks with which Switzerland’s main tourist area is synonymous, the French-speaking Jura is filled with low hills and grassy valleys.

Little towns and villages stick in the mind: Délémont, the regional capital; Saint-Ursanne, understandably drawing the most tourists with its picture-perfect medieval houses dangling over the River Doubs; Epauvillers; and most particularly, Soubey, also on the Doubs, where I spent my first night camping ina field. It felt quite remote, tucked into the tight valley crease that was lined by wooded hills.

Alpine adventures