Peter Robins, his website

LDP News 2002

Roads to Santiago
The area in Europe where undoubtedly the most development is taking place is paths to Santiago de Compostela. See separate pages.
Alps: Via Alpina
This major repackaging of existing paths across 8 Alpine countries, coordinated by the Grande Traversée des Alpes, was officially launched in June. 5 different colour-coded trails, with a total of some 5000km. www.via-alpina.com/
Alps: Kulturweg
The 650km Swiss section of this route, from St-Gingolph on Lake Geneva to Müstair at the extreme eastern edge of the country, was opened by the Naturfreunde in 1999. The objective was to highlight cultural aspects of the Alps, economic, social and ecological, agriculture as well as buildings etc. It has now been extended 1800km on 2 routes through Austria from Müstair to the Hungarian border. There is a guidebook for the Swiss section, and one for each of the 2 Austrian routes. www.naturfreunde.ch/kulturweg/ for the Swiss part; www.naturfreunde.at for the Austrian part. For more detailed info on the Austrian section, including an overview map, see www.inst.at/berge/projekte/kulturweg_alpen.htm
Alps: Alpes sans frontière
The joint Franco-Italian 1:25000 mapping venture is now complete for the whole of the French/Italian border; series of 10 titles including a map showing cross-border routes and a guide, produced by the Alpine clubs. See www.ign.fr/fr/GP/cartes/guides/cartoguides.html.
Alps: Munich-Venice
Ludwig Grassler’s classic Alpine crossing, first published in 1977, is now available in a new edition. The main work is in coffee-table format with many fine photographs, but also included is a smaller route description to take with you.
Alps: Matterhorn Tour
Following the well-known Tour du Mont Blanc and the Tour Monte Rosa, a circuit of the Matterhorn - Tour du Cervin/Matterhorn Tour - has now been created too. Intended as an 8-day tour to the west of Monte Rosa, it is largely on the Swiss side, with a short section on the Italian southern side of the mountain. It crosses the main Alpine ridge via the Col de Collon and the Theodulpass, and therefore requires glacier experience. An association has been formed, though this does not appear to have a website. A PDF brochure is available on Evolene’s site.
Paris-Amsterdam
There has long been a route, the GR12, from Paris to the southern edge of Brussels. This has now been extended further north to Antwerp and Amsterdam. In the Netherlands, it uses existing long-distance paths (primarily the Graaf-Floris-V-Pad (LAW 1-3), but in Flanders, a new route was created. In line with the recent trend to include sections through towns and cities as well as through the countryside, a connecting route right through the centre of Brussels, including the Grand’ Place, was opened in 2001, and the new route through Flanders also traverses Mechelen/Malines. Although it runs around the eastern edge of Antwerp, there is a new connecting route through Antwerp from the GR5A, which crosses the Schelde using the pedestrian tunnel. The official opening was in March, but there was also an official ribbon-cutting in September as part of the 25th birthday party for the Flemish long-distance paths organisation, Grote Routepaden. For Flemish section, see www.grsentiers.org/gr12n.htm; and for Brussels section, see www.grsentiers.org/grbru.htm.
France: Tour de France
After his 1999-2000 walk around France, Serge Laurent wants to formalise his 9000km route as the Sentier du Tour de France Pédestre, and has formed an Association to this effect. See www.sentier-tourdefrancepedestre.org [note 2003: site moved to www.grandsentierdefrance.org/]. Meanwhile, Denis Boulbes has published an account of his round-France walk, spread over 8 years: La clef des chemins.
Germany: Long-Distance Path Atlas
An overview map of the main long-distance paths in Germany was published by the Deutsche Wanderverlag, but it’s been long out of print and hugely out of date, not least by only covering the former W. Germany. The gap has now been filled by Bruckmann Verlag, who have published their Weitwanderatlas Deutschland by Bernard Pollmann, which covers 100 of the main routes throughout the country.
Greece
The Greek National Tourism Organisation has published some new 1:50,000 maps for walkers, based on the military maps. They mark the E-paths and other long-distance routes, and on the back is a description of the area and the paths in Greek, English and German. They only cover small parts of the country - Olympos (of course), a set of 12 covering part of the NW, a set of 7 for part of the Macedonia/Thrace border with Bulgaria, 2 in the N Peloponnese, 2 in C Greece - but are part funded by the EU, so I hope this is part of a general trend and we will see more of them. The GNTO’s website is at www.gnto.gr but the maps do not seem to be mentioned on it.
Netherlands
The Wandelplatform-LAW has published a new issue for 2002-4 of their overview map of long-distance paths in the Netherlands. Besides the map, there’s a brief description of each route and the associated guidebook. On the back, there’s general walking info plus info on websites, YHs and other related matters. See http://www.wandelnet.nl/routes/overzicht.asp
Switzerland: Trans Swiss Trail
A number of cross-Switzerland routes were developed in the 1980s and published by Kümmerly & Frey. These are however now largely out of print, and the Swiss Hiking Federation has been debating how best to handle the demand for longer trails. Their answer is Trans Swiss Trails, the first of which, from Porrentruy on the northern border to Chiasso in the southern, was opened in June. A guidebook is available. For a detailed description, see Ursi Brem’s excellent wandersite.ch site.
United Kingdom: Long Distance Path Chart
The Long Distance Walkers Association, in association with Harvey’s Maps, has published a new edition of their Long Distance Path Chart, which depicts the main long-distance paths in the UK. This is a companion to the Long Distance Walkers Handbook, published by A&C Black.
United Kingdom: E9 Extension
A variant to the E9 European Coast Path along the S coast of England from Dover to Plymouth was opened in September. See www.ramblers.org.uk/info/paths/e9.html

May 14, 2005