Historical trails

35 attractive itineraries to discover step by step the art of building paths and roads: the first edition of the new collection of Swiss Heritage is dedicated to communication routes, transit landscapes, and historic infrastructure works.

For centuries, the topography of our small alpine nation in the heart of Europe pushes the builders of trails and roads to perform greatness.
Bridges with a daring structure, old mule tracks, Napoleonic alpine roads and other Belle Époque routes for the diligences reflect the social, political and technical evolutions.
They bring a very instructive light on our own story.

Trails of communication are cultural property

The fact that a number of sections of roads or historic roads are still preserved is not self-evident. The Confederation very early recognized the importance of these witnesses of a particular genre, which it had studied and mapped since the 1980s. The results were transcribed in the Inventaire fédéral des voies de communication historiques de la Suisse (IVS).
Swiss Heritage wishes to give the desire to discover this cultural heritage.

The selection of itineraries, which relies to a large extent on the IVS, invites to take paths restored in the rules of art and to cross landscapes of beauty.
All the proposed hikes are also listed on suissemobile.ch.

" Everything is good out of the hands of nature "

Jean-Jaques Rousseau