Jura Day 16

We woke to thick cloud and pouring rain.  This was not good, as the day’s walk was forecast to take 7 hours.  We went down for breakfast, to a huge array of food, despite there being only five guests for breakfast.  After breakfast, we went back to the room and debated what to do; we could take the cable car down, then train to the next hotel, or wait and see if the weather would clear as forecast.  There were occasional times when the cloud lifted, but most of the time visibility was about 50m.  As we got close to the checkout at 11am, the weather definitely improved, so we decided to walk.  It was cold, but not too wet as we headed into the wind.  The path was good, so we kept up a good speed.  We then reached a climb, followed by a narrow path along the ridge.  It wasn’t as narrow as the first day’s but we walked slowly because of the treacherous  underfoot conditions.  The weather gradually improved, and we had some great views, back to where we had started, and where we will be going in a few days.  We then climbed up onto some moorland, the first since we left Germany.  Visibility was again bad, but as it lifted we saw two chamois about 100m ahead.  They hadn’t smelt us, so we managed to get fairly close before they ran, over a wall and down the cliff.  Today we saw a lot of stone walls, which we haven’t seen before on the trip.  We overtook a few other walkers on this section, and then we saw our first signs in French on an electricity box.  The train from Frinvillier to Biel/Bienne ran at 35 minutes past the hour, so that was our objective when we saw a sign to Frinvillier saying it was just over 2 hours away.  We avoided a slippery descent through the forest by walking on the road, and made it to the station with twenty minutes to spare.  Frinvillier is a weird place, set in a valley, and the motorway, another road, and the railway all emerge from tunnels for about 500m before disappearing into the hills again.  

Biel/Bienne is officially French and German speaking, and the name reflects this.  The architecture in the area around the station, where we are staying, can probably be described as 1920s brutalist (apparently they had a left wing mayor at the time).  It’s also the main centre for Swiss watch making, though we haven’t seen any signs of Rolex, Omega, or Swatch.