Today’s Stats:
Moving Time 3h 54m
Distance: 9.2 miles
Ascent: 1,656’
Max Elevation: 4,822’

We had the dessert course of our hiking trip today. Today’s hike was an easier hike with some great views and a wonderful trek through history. We started our trip by grabbing a bus from Sils Maria to the small village of Casaccia. This bus descended down the Molaja Pass which is perhaps the most winding, twisty road I’ve ever seen. The bus has a special horn that it blows from time to time as it goes down to let traffic know it’s there, as the bus requires the entire road to make it around the hairpin switchbacks.

We got off in Casaccia and started our hike to Soglio. The hike was fairly easy. We slowly ascended a little then descended a bit too. All in all I think we descended more than we ascended today. Yesterday was a tiring day and Tammy and I were both feeling some tenderness in our knees so Tammy and I didn’t feel like burning up the trail. It was a nice final day of hiking.

Soglio is very close to the border of Italy and it seems Italian is as common here, if not more, than German. I noticed that the trail signs switched from German to Italian. Another difference that denoted the Italian influence was the near universal use of rock roofs on the houses.

As we were hiking along the trail and passed through a small village we saw this table on the side of the road with preserves for sale on it. We we’re confused at first. It looked like this stuff was for sale but there wasn’t anyone there and there were no prices on things. Annica translated the sign for us and it simply said the preserves were for sale and leave whatever you felt they were worth. How cool is that? We grabbed two jars and left some francs in the money jar. It’s nice to see such trust in your fellow people.

The trail was very nice and we passed several water flows. We even passed one relatively good sized waterfall that I took a moment to climb up a little bit on and get some better pictures.

Another really cool thing about today’s hike was a section of the trail that is an ancient Roman road. It was constructed forever ago by the Romans to help them get around their land. It was really amazing to walk on these stones that were laid literally thousands of years ago. How many people have tread on them.

We got our first glimpse of Soglio and it was so picturesque. Soglio isn’t in the valley and the first glimpse from the trail didn’t give the details of the ancient city inside. I’ve never seen a town with such narrow alleyways and corridors between buildings. It feels like you are walking in another century as you walk through the village.

Tomorrow we start our journey back home. We head to Zurich and then the following day fly back home to Minneapolis. It’s been a great time. Memorable in so many ways. The hiking trip was just great. Six days of hiking and 63 miles later I can’t believe that I wish it wasn’t ending.

This is a map that shows our six days of hiking all together. You can see the gaps in the first half of the trip that were taken by train. The last half of the trip is all on foot.

Part of Europe 2004 collection. Also see Hike to Soglio from Switzerland & Italy 2023 collection.