William L. Sullivan's wacky mystery, "The Case of Einstein's Violin," uses some of his favorite European hiking areas as settings. Based on his slide show, "Hiking In Europe," here are Sullivan's recommendations for spectacular trails in Europe.
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Andorra/France Austria Denmark Germany Greece Italy Norway Scotland Slovakia Slovenia
Vall
d'Incles,
Andorra
Refuge du
Rulhe,
France
Refuge du
Fourcat,
France
The most famous (and most crowded) hiking region of the Pyrenees includes the large French and Spanish national parks in the central part of the range. But the eastern Pyrenees are just as beautiful, much less crowded, and more accessible -- with inexpensive buses leaving daily for Andorra from the central bus stations of Toulouse and Barcelona.
Andorra is a tiny, wealthy country with about 30,000 natives and about 80,000 guest workers, many of whom earn their living in duty-free perfume/liquor/electronics shops and large ski hotels. These hotels are mostly empty and inexpensive in summer. Andorra does not have many good hiking huts, but the French huts just over the border are excellent, and because neither country advertises the other's trails, the French huts are often empty. The two recommended trips, then, start at Andorran ski villages and cross border passes to French hiking huts.
From the Andorran capital (Andorra La Vella), take a bus an hour northeast to the ski village Soldeu. Stay at any of the modern hotels there (two-star to five-star). The next day walk up the lovely Val d'Incles to the French border at the Port d'Incles pass and continue past the Fontargent lakes to the Refuge du Rulhe, a modern French hut where hikers can stay for about 15 euros a night.
For a different trip, take a bus from Andorra La Vella to Ordino and change to a small van-bus to the village of El Serrat. Stay at a ski hotel here. The next day walk (or drive a rental car, or hitchhike) up the road 7 km to the Arcalis Ski Resort (closed in summer). From here hike past the Tristaina Lakes over the Port de l'Arbella pass into France and continue on a rough but beautiful trail to Fourcat Lake. The modern French hut here, in a panoramic setting, is a good base for day hikes.
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Gargellen, Austria
Signpost
near Schladming,
Giglachseehuette near Schladming.
Many of Austria's popular tourist destinations near Innsbruck and Salzburg are simply too crowded to be fun. But Austria has hundreds of tiny villages with trails and huts that see less use. One out-of-the-way location that's featured in "The Case of Einstein's Violin" is the village of Gargellen, in far western Austria near the Swiss border. Trains run from Feldkirch and Bludenz to Schruns. A bus continues from there to St. Gallenkirch, and a little van/bus ventures up a side canyon to tiny Gargellen. In winter it's a ski resort, but in summer shops close and rooms are cheap. Hiking destinations are the Tuebinger Hut (a nice hut hotel), the Schlappinerjoch (a pass on the Swiss border with a panoramic goat shed), and the Tiilisuna Hut.
An even better base for "hut-hopping" in the Austrian Alps is the town of Schladming. The "Lower Tauern" Alps here are not frighteningly precipitous, un-touristy, and still plenty craggy. This is a perfect place to enjoy the convenience of "hut-hopping," visiting the trailside alpine hotels that charge about 15 euros a night for a bed and about 10 euros for a dinner. Backpacking with a tent is banned in most places in the Alps, so hut-hopping is the ticket for multi-day trips.
Find Schladming by taking the train an hour southeast of Salzburg. The little town is a favorite hangout of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The tourist office can connect you with a hotel room, if you like. Or you can simply flag a taxi at the train station and ask to be driven directly to the trailhead at the Forellenhof hotel on lake Bodensee, about 10 km east of town. From there hike up to the Hans-Woedl Hut. The next day hike south over a pass to the Preintaler Hut. On the third day hike southewest over a high, wild pass landscape to the Goelling Hut. The fourth day hike west past the little Landwiersee Hut to the Keinprecht Hut. On the fifth day continue west to either the Ignaz-Mattis Hut or the Giglachsee Hut. This is a good place to spend an extra day. Then hike downhill to the northeast to the village of Hopfriesen and the Tauerngold hotel, where buses run regularly back to Schladming.
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Svendborg, Denmark
Aeroeskoebing, Denmark,
Although Denmark really doesn't have many hiking trails, it is a land ideally suited to bicycling. Alas, most tourists see nothing but the urban bustle of Copenhagen! Perhaps the prettiest rural bike tour visits four islands near the cute little town of Svenborg. Plan on a three- or four-day trip, using two ferries and two bridges to get around.
From Copenhagen, take a train 3 hours to Odense and transfer for the 40-minute train ride to the end of the line in Svendborg. A town of about 30,000 on the island of Funen, Svendborg has cute pedestrian shopping streets, a windmill, half-timbered houses, and an old-fashioned harbor. Rent a bike here and catch the ferry to Aeroeskoebing, an even smaller and cuter village on the island of Aeroe. The cobblestone streets are lined with cottages where sea captains once retired. A commercial campground near town offers rental cabins where you can stay. The next day bicycle past thatch-roofed farms, country churches, and pre-Viking burial dolmens to Marstal, a similarly quaint village. Look for a bed-and-breakfast on a farm near the edge of town. The third day take the ferry to Rudbykoebing on the island of Langeland. A bridge takes you to the island of Taasinge, with more windmills and a castle. The little hotels and B&Bs at the village of Troense are expensive, so you might just bike over the bridge to Svendborg instead.
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Neuschwanstein, Germany
Ulm,
Germany.
Klingenstein Castle, Germany.
Germany is famous for its castles. The most visited castle was not built as a defensive structure. In a fit of romantic madness, King Ludwig of Bavaria ordered the Neushcwanstein castle designed by a Wagnerian operatic set designer. This same "mad" king had traveled to Gold-Rush-era San Francisco in 1860 and married a stripper named Lola Montez. Today the fanciful castle is one of the Germany's top tourist attractions, and the cobblestone path climbing to it is packed with tourists, horse carts, and horse manure.
Neuschwanstein is in the Bavarian Alps, and a network of hiking trails continues beyond the castle to viewpoints, peaks, and huts beyond the crush of tour buses. Still, if you're going to visit a German castle, why not avoid the crowds altogether by trekking to one of the country's most run-down, overlooked sites? Certainly this describes the dilapidated Klingenstein castle outside of the city of Ulm -- a location featured in William L. Sullivan's mystery "The Case of Einstein's Violin."
Alfred Einstein was born in Ulm, a town at the head of navigation on the Danube River, halfway between Stuttgart and Munich. To be sure, Einstein moved away as an infant and never warmed much to his birth town. An Allied bombing raid in World War II destroyed most of Ulm's charming old town, but miraculously left the Muenster intact, a gigantic stone church with the tallest church spire in the world. Today, by far the most spectacular hike in Ulm is the climb up the church tower. The route winds through stone spiral staircases to a vertiginous perch just a few meters below the summit.
For the best bike ride near Ulm, buy a map and follow bike routes west from Ulm along the Blau River 20 kilometers west to the monastic village of Blaubeuren, where the river emerges from a brilliant blue limestone pool. About halfway along this route you'll bicycle beneath the tower of Klingenstein Castle. Although the original castle ruins on this site date to the 13th century, the rundown building visible here was bought and renovated by a cement company magnate in the 1800s. It's open to public tours only one day a year, the minimum required by Germany's historic landmark law. As a result, it doesn't have the same crowd problems as Neuschwanstein, but it's a better setting for a mystery novel about Einstein. And it's a lovely place for a bike ride.
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Loutro on
Crete, Greece
Aradena Gorge on Crete, Greece.
Meteora,
Greece.
The E-4 hiking trail crosses Europe from Portugal to the Greek island of Crete. But much of the route in Crete is faint, rocky, and steep, through barren mountains overgrazed by goats, short on water, and without staffed huts or other accommodations. To enjoy the beauty of Crete, consider sticking to the roadless southern coast, where a branch of the E-4 hiking trail dips from village to village, passing dramatic gorges along the way.
An excellent base is the tiny village of Loutro, accessible only by boat or hiking trail. From airports at the cities of Hania or Rethymno, take a bus an hour to Vrysses and then south for two hours to the end of the road at the village of Hora Sfakion. Ferries leave here several times a day for the half-hour hop to Loutro. If you like, you can also walk from Hora Sfakion to Loutro, following E-4 signposts west 10 km along a spectacular coastal trail.
There are about a dozen little mom-and-pop hotels in Loutro where you can rent a room for two for about 40-80 euros a night, depending on the season. Half a dozen tavernas line the harbor, where you can dine. Two tiny general stores sell essentials. In addition to the coastal trail to Hora Sfakion, two other trails leave Loutro, and they can be combined into a loop for a difficult day trip. The toughest trail climbs almost 200 feet (650 meters) in switchbacks up to Anopolis, a farm village where you can walk a road west a kilometer or two to the high bridge at Aradin. From here a path leads through the ruined archeological site of Aradin down into Aradena Gorge. The rough trail follows this spectacular, narrow chasm down 7 km to the sea. A little motorboat ferry stops at the gorge mouth every afternoon to shuttle hikers back to Loutro, but you can also walk along the coastal trail 6 km to Loutro, passing the Phoenician ruin of Phinix along the way.
The larger ferry that visits Loutro also sails west to Samaria Gorge, Crete's second most popular tourist destination after the ruined palace at Knossos. After Aradena Gorge, Samaria is a hectic disappointment.
What's the next best hike in all of Greece? That would be the trail that climbs to a half dozen clifftop monasteries at Meteora, on the mainland. From Athens, catch a train to Kalambaka. This spectacular 3-hour trip climbs past Mt. Olympus to a dead-end at the town of Kalambaka. Weird limestone knolls overtower the town, with monasteries perched on top. The monasteries date to the 13th century when monks fled the Ottoman Turks, the Black Death, and the worldliness of bigger monasteries to establish hermit hangouts in caves on these cliffs. The hermitages developed into elaborate monastic castles, accessible only by rope and pulley. Today trails have been chipped out of the cliffs.
Most tourists drive in rental cars or tour buses to parking lots within an arrow's flight of the monasteries. It's more fun, and not much more work, to hike from one monastery to the other. For your first day, get a room in Kalambaka (following signs for rooms). Then hike up through town to Agia Triada and out to Agios Stefanos. The next day, walk a road west to the village of Kastraki, hike up to Agios Nikolao Anapafsas, and then follow hiking trails to the monasteries at Varlaam and Great Meteoro. Along the way, look for the the foot-long tortoises that live in the wild in these limestone forests.
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The
Italian Dolomites.
Cinque
Terre, Italy.
Pompei,
Italy.
Stromboli, Italy.
Stromboli, Italy.
Volcano on
Stromboli, Italy.
Welcome to Italy! Hikers here have options from the Alps to the subtropics. Perhaps the most heavily used hiking area is in the German-speaking Alpine Dolomites, the south Tyrol region that belonged to Austria until World War I. A good base is Vigo di Fassa, a village an hour's drive east from from the south Tyrolean capital of Bolzano (Bozen). From Vigo, hike northwest to Rifugio Preuss and the spectacularly set Rifugio Bergamo before circling back. It's easy to spend a week in this area. German and Italian are spoken everywhere here, and you'll get by with English.
Cinque Terre, the five coastal villages connected by a hiking trail on the Ligurian Riviera, were a charming getaway known only to a few German tourists until Seattle TV personality Rick Steves told America to come visit. Although you now see NY Mets baseball caps on the trails here, the area is still beautiful. The five coastline villages were accessible only by sea or by hiking trail until an ambitious railroad project drilled tunnels through the cliffs in the 1920s. The railroad emerges only for a few hundred meters at each of the five villages -- long enough for a train station -- and then ducks into a tunnel for several kilometers to the next town. As a result, hikers can get a room at one of the villages, trek to any of the others, and return via train at the end of the day. To start, catch a train west from Florence through Pisa and La Spezia to Vernazza. From there, hike either north to Monterosso and Levanto or south through Corniglia and Manarola to Riomaggiore.
Is the museum at Pompei a hike? Well, this ancient city near Naples is miles across, so only hikers can hope to see it all. The city was buried by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79AD. Excavations since the 18th century have uncovered Roman streets, crosswalks, townhouse mosaics, fast-food snack counters, political graffiti, and everything else that belonged in a Roman city of 30,000 people.
To see an even more active volcano, however, take a hydroplane ferry from Naples for 3 hours (or from Milazzo, Sicily for one hour) to the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli. The volcano here has been erupting steam and fiery rock every 5-15 minutes for the past 2000 years. Every 20 years or so the volcano sends out a lava flow that causes a small tsunami. The island's roads are too small for cars, so the only vehicles are three-wheeled buggies that shuttle tourists, cargo, and even the police up from the ferry landing to the town of San Vincenzo. Expect to be met at the ferry by a hawker or two offering rooms to rent for about 60 euros a night. In San Vincenzo, a guide service offers official trips up to the volcano's summit every evening for about 35 euros. The trips leave San Vincenzo about 5pm and return about 11pm. You can also explore the volcano on your own by taking the trail from San Vincenzo's pharmacy (beside the main church) for 4 km to a viewpoint. Although travel above this point is not allowed without a guide, many tourists (especially daredevil Germans) go up on their own, sometimes even camping overnight on the summit to watch the nighttime fires.
A safer bet is to hike to Il Osservatorio, a pizzeria bar on the volcano's lower flank, where you can while away the evening by candlelight, watching for the eruptions that spew fire from the summit every 5-15 minutes.
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Farm
Settlement in Aurlandsdal near Flaam, Hardanger.
The
Hardangervidda from the Bergenbanen railway.
Hiking in Norway requires more independence than when hiking in the Alps. The huts are generally not staffed. If you expect to use a hut, you'll need to join the Norwegian Tourist Club (Den Norske Turistforening) and get a key for the hut where you're headed. Then you can open the door, use supplies, and leave money for what you've used. Otherwise, expect to camp alone in a wild, barren landscape.
Perhaps the easiest region to access is along the Bergenbanen, the wild railway line between Oslo and Bergen that crosses the barren Hardangervidda. To sample the region in comfort, buy a ticket for the Flaambanen, the scenic tourist railroad that spirals down through the solid rock of a fjord's cliffs from the the height of the Bergenbanen to the ancient fjord-side village of Flaam. From there a short bus ride takes you to Aurland, where you can rent a fisherman's shack on the fjord. The next day, take the Aurlandsdal bus for an hour (on an amazing road that spirals up through solid cliffs) to Berdalen. From this extremely remote bus stop among goats, follow a marked trail up Aurlandsdal 7 km to a medieval farm outpost that has been restored by university students as a summer project.
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Stromness,
Orkney, from the ferry.
Skara
Brae archeological site, Orkney Is.
Scotland's Orkney Islands are entirely above timberline, so there are no forests. Incredibly, people have lived here so long that excavations reveal thriving villages from 3000 BC, when Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids were being built. You can get here from the northernmost train station in Scotland (Thurso) by taking a one-hour ferry ride to Stromness. You can also get here from Bergen, Norway, by taking an expensive overnight ferry that stops at the Shetland Islands on its way to Iceland..
Stromness has a nice youth hostel that's open to people of all ages. There's also a bike rental shop nearby. Rent bikes and tour the slightly hilly island on a 25-mile loop. First ride north to Skara Brae, a beach where erosion has exposed the circular stone walls of a village of huts from 3000 BC. Wood rarely survives this long at archeological sites, but because Orkney has so little wood the huts and most of their furniture were built of stone. Next bicycle east to the Ring of Brodgar, a circle of standing stones in a heather field perhaps a tenth of a mile in diameter. The ring dates to roughly the same age as the village. Another few miles east lies Maes Howe, a burial mound that also dates to prehistoric times. An entrance shaft is aligned to the solstice sun. Runes inside survive from Viking-age visitors.
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Teryho
chata hut in the High Tatras.
The
High Tatras from Sedietko Pass.
Slovakia, the eastern half of former Czechoslovakia, may be poorer economically than the Czech Republic, but it has the taller mountains. The High Tatras (Vysoke Tatry) are a narrow band of peaks forming the border between Slovakia and Poland. From Slovakia's capital, Bratislava, it's a 6-hour train ride to the village of Tatranska Strba. Next to the train station is the station for a very steep cog railway that takes you up another 6 miles to Strbske Pleso. Get out here. In winter this is an Olympics training village with a frozen lake, big hotels, bobsled runs, and ski jumps. In summer it's a good starting point for a week-long hike to the hut-hotels of the Tatras.
Most of the trails are built of rough flagstones. The high mountain huts are supplied not by helicopters, horses, or tramways, but rather by Slovak "sherpas," men who pride themselves in carrying improbably heavy leads of propane, beer kegs, and supplies up the steep paths. Prices are very reasonable, with a bed for about $10 and a beer for about $1.
On your first day hike north from Strbske Pleso about 5 miles to Chata Popradske Pleso, a Swiss-style wooden hut overlooking a charming mountain lake in the forest. The second day hike east 8 miles to Sliezsky Dom. This hut is concrete, and it's accessible by road, but it's convenient. The third day hike east another 8 miles to the Bilikova Chata. You could stay at this hut, but it's crowded because it's at the top of a popular cog railway. So stop for a meal and hike on another 2 miles to the Zamkovskeho Chata, a chalet hut in the woods. The fourth day climb 4 steep miles up to the Teryho Chata, on a barren mountain crag. The fifth day take a rough, steep mountain path 5 miles west to the Zbojnicka Chata, the "Robbers' Hut." Then on the sixth day hike down the valley and catch a cog railway from the Bilikova Chata down to the train station at the city of Vysoke Tatry.
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The Koca Pri Triglavskih Jezerih Hut in Slovenia.
When Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s, Slovenia was the first and richest of the fragments to declare independence. Today it resembles neighboring Austria, but with more forests, no clearcuts, and fewer tourists. Slovenia contains the easternmost end of the Alps, a cluster of white dolomite peaks that aren't quite high enough to attract glaciers. The highest point of these "Julian Alps" is 2864-meter Triglav ("triple head"). By tradition, every Slovenian should climb Triglav at least once in his life. As a result, mountain hut-hotels have been built very high on this barren crag, and in August they're packed with locals on summer vacation. Visit in late June or early July, though, and you'll have the place to yourself.
Slovenia's capital, Ljubjlana, is located halfway between Venice and Vienna, and is a full day's train travel from either. Although the capital city has a Stalinesque bleakness from the train windows, it does have a charming old town, if you have time to explore it. To get to Triglav National Park in the Julian Alps, walk across the street from the capital's train station to find the bus station. Take a bus for Bohini. Don't get off after an hour in Bled. Although this is the most popular tourist town in Slovenia, it's simply too crowded and commercialized to be fun. Instead stay on the bus another 40 minutes to Stara Fuzina, a quaint old village at the outlet of large Lake Bohini. There's a pizzeria, a hotel, and a tourist office that can direct you to nice rooms in chalet-style private houses nearby.
The first day of your hike, leave Stara Fuzina on a road/trail that goes north along a creek gorge half a mile to a spectacular bridge. Then turn left to find a trail that switchbacks up 2 miles to a hut called Kosijev Dom Na Vogarju. This makes a good lunch stop before continuing another 3 miles west to a hut by a small lake, Koca Na Platini Jezeru. The second day hike west 5 miles to Koca Pri Triglavskih Jezerih, one of the country's most beautiful huts, set between two lakes below rows of white dolomite peaks. You might stay here several days. Then hike north up a steepish path 6 miles to the Zasavska koca hut. From here it would be possible to summit Triglav the following day, hiking northeast on rocky routes that sometimes have hand cables. You could also aim for either of two very high huts, the Trzaska koca or the Dom Planika. The following day, hike 8 miles south to descend back to Stara Fuzina. If you want to extend your trip, there's a nice hut along the way on this final day.
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