The E4 heads SW for a couple of days from Stammheim. While planning, I couldn’t find any accommodation in the 20-30km walking range, and there were no easy bus or train connections to accommodation. I therefore planned a day’s walk south to Winterthur, and then a second day walking west to get us back onto the E4. There are thousands of marked paths in Switzerland, so it was easy to plan.
We had a good breakfast and started our walk. After about an hour of walking, I suddenly realised we were on the E4 rather than our alternative route. (Why? The previous night walking to the restaurant we had followed signs for the E4, and I guess this had somehow stuck in my brain…) Luckily there was a road that would take us to the correct path, but we passed 2km south of our start point after walking for 1.5 hours. Once we were on the correct path, it was a generally easy walk. As we walked south we crossed three low lying ridges. These all extend a long way east-west, and I wonder if they are glacial moraines. There was a broad, flat, valley in between each. (The photos show the views from one ridge to the next) Today was probably the hottest so far, and there were no cafes in any of the small villages that we walked through. We did have plenty of water with us. The countryside was a mixture of vineyards, forests, and fields of barley, corn, and vegetables. All day there were red kites overhead, often swooping low down over the fields, at other times fighting (or courting?). We walked on a mixture of deserted country roads and tracks, though did cross over a motorway. The final section was through a forest that took us into the suburbs of Winterthur, and it was then only a couple of kilometres to the hotel. It’s a lovely temperature and we had dinner on the hotel terrace.
Another day of walking and we reach the start of the Jura Crest trail!
Max elevation: 526 m
Total climbing: 519 m
Glad to hear you realised your navigation error before you had gone too far and not up any hills.
Interested in the church spire in your photo; it appears to have vents all the way up, were these for the bells? The clock seems a bit oversized – must be electric as there doesn’t appear to be space for a mechanical clock.