High in the Swiss Alps is the Grimsel Pass, one of the most barren and inhospitable of the Alpine passes. Even higher there is a necklace of glaciers, adorning the most imposing peaks. Each glacier descends from a rocky pinnacle like a sparkling diamond in a tiara. This rugged mountain range supplies much of mainland Europe with its fresh water supply. It snows here almost every day from October to May. When it’s not snowing there’s sleet and wind. The weather is fierce. Sometimes the wind is so strong it dislodges boulders from the steep slopes.

The rocks are grey and black, scoured by ice, wind and rain. The mountains are being eroded here, particle by particle, every minute of every day. Tentacles of ice loosen fragments of stone. Jagged heaps of scree extend further with every snow melt. Gravity and streams carry the debris away. Water and sediment flow from these Alpine peaks south towards the Mediterranean and north towards the Baltic. The Alps are, quite literally, the watershed of Europe.

DAYBREAK The rain beats down on the roof of the ‘hospiz’ all night long. It is pouring down, giant celestial buckets are being flung by the gods onto the mountains of Switzerland. At dawn I get up, pull on all my clothes, everything I’ve brought with me. This includes two jumpers, woolly leggings, waterproof trousers, hat, anorak and gloves. Even though it’s mid-July it is seriously grim here at the Grimsel. I step outside into a land of swirling mist and dense parcels of fog. It is so difficult to see that I feel nervous and uncertain. I am reluctant to take a step. I stumble forward into the whiteness. As I peer through the mist, eyes straining, I begin to discern a shape, an indistinct shape, moving towards me. I recognise a fellow guest from the ‘hospiz’. He is perfectly kitted-out in wet-weather gear from head to toe. He introduces himself to me, somewhat imperiously as Mr Pugh. I find his presence annoying. I’ve always fancied myself as an explorer and an intrepid character. I’d rather have this mystical, ghostly place to myself. He begins to inform me, in painstaking detail about the area.

MILLENIA – The rocks that surround the Grimsel are millions of years old. They are composed of granite which has been twisted and contorted by intense heat and great pressure. These processes are called metamorphosis. In the distant geological past these rocks were lifted up to create The Alps, the mountain chain that runs in a crescent shape from France through Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy into Slovenia. It is the backbone of Europe. The valleys leading from the Grimsel have been carved by ice and water over thousands of years. In the 1930s a series of man-made dams along the River Aar created a staircase of artificial lakes. The area was identified as being perfect for the production of hydro-electric power. Below ground there is an intricate system of tunnels and turbines generating electricity for the nearby cantons of Berne and Valais. The quantity of power generated in this Swiss valley accounts for 10% of Switzerland’s annual requirements.

There’s a pause, a welcome silence, and I think perhaps Mr Pugh has finished, but he merely clears his throat and continues. In recent years the ‘power company’ has been on a major charm offensive, attempting to protect and honour the natural environment that it so rigorously pillages. It is possible to stay at the ‘hospiz’, a comfortable and stylish lodge, powered entirely by electricity generated in this valley. There’s even a cable car that guests can use, to take you from one side of the valley to the other, powered by the same locally sourced electricity. They make enormous profits each year and are under pressure to justify such returns whilst harnessing such an abundant natural resource. Interesting I think to myself, water generates power and power generates money.

As Mr P’s monologue comes to an end something miraculous does happen. The mist begins to clear, a ray of sunshine reaches the ground. The monumental causeway is revealed before me. And miracle of miracles Mr Pugh is nowhere to be seen. I can see the lake, a vast body of slate grey water, contained by a menacing concrete dam. The stunning position of the ‘hospiz’ and the causeway, a finger of land between two vast watery, malevolent oceans, is humbling. All gloriously illuminated in the July sunshine. I’m on top of the world. The beauty of this rocky, rugged, bleak scenery is powerful even sublime.

_{As the mist clears over the Grimsel See, high in the Swiss Alps http://www.greyhoundtrainers.com}

I’ve witnessed, first hand, the extremity of the weather that creates and shapes the Grimsel. Rain, wind, blizzard conditions, all essential to the nurturing and feeding of the roof top of Europe. I muse that the power of water flowing through this part of Switzerland has been fixating travellers for generations. Arthur Conan Doyle, on a trip to nearby Meiringen was so inspired by the immensity and power of the Reichenbach Falls that he used it as the location for Sherlock Holmes final and deadly encounter with the evil Moriarty in his short story ‘The Final Problem’ (1893). Here good and evil fight to the death against the precarious backdrop of a monstrous waterfall. An eloquent testimony to the power of nature in the mountains.

_{Sherlock Holmes & Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland (1893) by Sidney Paget (left) – from Arthur Conan Doyle’s story ‘The Final Problem’. Right – the lush hillsides of Meiringen}

MORNING SUN – the summer is short and beautiful here in the mountains, the sun shines, the ice starts to melt, plants and flowers burst into life and hikers stride enthusiastically through the Alpine meadows. Nabakov loved the Alps and regularly spent weeks here in the summer. An amusing sight in baggy shorts armed with a butterfly net; he was an amateur lepidopterist. These days the mountains attract walkers and cyclists, climbers and campers. The glaciers are losing volume now, every summer they melt or recede. Not just from the front (or snout) of the glacier, but from the sides and top as well. As a mountain guide told me last summer, it’s the volume of ice that the glaciers are losing each summer that is alarming, not the seasonal recession, which is normal. Warmer summers and greater ice melt has had an unexpected consequence in Alpine areas. Each summer the melting ice reveals a cargo of souls often incarcerated in the glacier for decades. There’s the case of the mountain guide Johannes Naegeli, one of the most respected mountain experts in Meiringen, who went hiking one day and never returned. Years later in summer 1986 his boots and alpenstock were discovered at the base of the Aar Glacier. All that remained of him were some polished bones and a pair of hobnail boots. In August, 1942 a husband and wife went to check their cattle grazing on summer pastures high above the village of Les Diablerets, they never returned. Just last year their entombed corpses were revealed, appearing like a pile of dirty laundry, on the edge of the Tsanfleuron Glacier. Some leather boots, a drinking flask and assorted human remains were whisked away for microscopic examination in a state-of-the-art laboratory in Montreux. Extensive analysis confirmed that these were indeed the remains of two villagers lost on the glacier eighty years earlier. A series of warmer summers in the Alps makes future discoveries highly likely. Summer melt water reveals all sorts of hidden treasures.

LATE MORNING – My journey is about to begin. The sun is shining now and the ice is melting. I can move, I can stretch, I can turn. I’m rising, bouncing, careering, forwards on a breath of air. The valley sides are steep, the water is flowing fast. This energy and force is carving the river channel deeper and wider as it descends. The scenery is changing too. Gone are the barren rock faces, they have been replaced by moss and lichen and ferns, luxuriant green ferns. The sort that used to fill Victorian conservatories, so thick and dense that they actually cut out the light. The air is dripping humidity, heavy with the smell of damp vegetation. There are waterfalls too, sparkling cascades of spray. Rainbows appear as the light is refracted through the shimmering air. The temperature rises and the overhead sun pierces the water surface revealing fish, tiny shrimps, dragon flies and the occasional amphibian.

The valley is a little wider now. There is a steep path up the side of the gorge and a man has climbed the path and is scrapping the moss from the rock wall. He has a small sharp knife and a bucket. He looks as if he is collecting something. He stands close to the rock, examining it carefully, and murmurs to himself, I can’t hear what he says. He’s wearing breeches and an old fashioned gentleman’s coat with tails at the back. The sort of thing that some people wear for weddings or going to meet The Queen at Buckingham Palace. Much later I discover that the man is a prominent scientist – one of the first to propose the theory of glaciation. I also learn that he is an expert on classifying and dating fish fossils. His name is Louis Agassiz. There’s a pool directly ahead. The surface of the water has become smooth and glassy, the flow is much slower. The colour of the water has changed from green to blue. There’s a dam holding back the water. A huge concrete dam. At the side of the dam is an overspill channel which drops vertically about 100 metres down the hillside. I don’t like the look of it, but I’ll just hold my breath, close my eyes and hope for the best. It’s a long way down. Below is a flat valley floor, with green fields, hedges and trees. The fields contain crops, wheat, barley, maize. Some of the fields are being grazed by cows. The cows have bells around their necks and when they move the bells tinkle. It is a pleasant gentle sound after the roar of the waterfall.

At the end of the valley the river swings to the east and the speed of flow builds again. The waters of two rivers merge, it’s a confluence. United the body of water is bigger, stronger and more fearless. The speed of the river is fast. There’s a bridge ahead, an elegant timber bridge. Just before the bridge on the west bank there is a vineyard. Local people say that the micro-climate created by the river enriches the soil with a constant and plentiful supply of moisture. As a result vines flourish in this location and produce round, rich grapes that lead to delicious full bodied wines. The five sisters who run this vineyard are very proud of their heritage. Their family home is a stately villa dating from the 1540s. I’m not much of a royalist, so I apologise for another mention of the House of Windsor, however this is true and interesting. The Queen Mother came here for tea once, the family were in a state of panic, but their guest’s most insistent request was quite simple – she didn’t want tea, absolutely not, she just wanted a very stiff, four fingers, gin and tonic.

The bridge ahead is a landmark. It is a covered bridge with a roof, even in the snow and rain, those crossing the bridge are protected from the elements. At water level the footings have been built in the shape of arrow heads to direct the water around the bridge’s foundations. The bridge itself has an interesting history too. It’s been rebuilt many times on the same site, this particular bridge was designed by the famous local architect Andrea Palladio, better known for designing country houses. As I get closer to the bridge I catch a snippet of singing voices floating through the air. Above the parapet I can see a group of men wearing felt hats, each hat has a feather jauntily threaded through the head band. They are ‘Alpini’ the famous mountain regiment of the Italian army. Just a little way from here is the sacred mountain Monte Grappa. It was here that hundreds of thousands of young Italian soldiers lost their lives in the First World War, fighting against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Monte Grappa is Italy’s version of the Somme. The bridge marks an important boundary, a division between upland and lowland. The bridge defines the liminal space where the river emerges from the hills into the grassy rolling plains of the Veneto countryside.

Ernest Hemingway came here as a volunteer, he worked as an ambulance driver, he would drive to the front line pick up wounded soldiers and transport them back to military hospitals. He was wounded himself several times and received a medal for his bravery. There’s a new museum dedicated to Hemingway just east of the river. Right at the end of the bridge as the line of Italian flags comes to an end, there’s a tiny distillery. It’s been run by the Nardini family for generations. The building is the size of a small cottage. After each grape harvest, once the grapes are squeezed to produce wine, there’s a residue of skins and seeds left behind. This ‘must’ is taken to the distillery and distilled into a very strong brandy-type liqueur known as ‘grappa’. The ingredients are simply grape seeds, grape skins and water. It is a very alchoholic ‘aquavit’ spirit, ideal for keeping the chill of the mountain air at bay. This particular fire-water is famed throughout Italy. I personally hate the stuff, even though it is almost entirely made of water. I’ve heard that old Ernesto loved it.

EARLY AFTERNOON The watery flow continues. The snow-capped mountain peaks providing a glorious backdrop to the lush green fields of the ‘campagna’. This is the point where the Barbaro brothers chose to build their country home. The house is positioned at the exact point where the Asolani Hills meet the Venetian plains. A stream from the hills provides water to the house, orchards, vineyards and stables. For visitors approaching from Venice, the tree-lined avenue leading to the elevated house, offers a regal and impressive panorama. For the occupants of the house the view from the ‘piano nobile’ across the rich agricultural farmland towards Venice gives a feeling of well-being and even self-satisfaction. The house is built in a mellow, creamy coloured limestone giving it a warm and welcoming demeanour. Internally the house is decorated with frescoes and highly detailed wall paintings. These frescoes are mostly the work of Paolo Veronese the number one interior decorator of the day. They are filled with light, colour, humour and joy. There are numerous ‘trompe l’oeil’ effects, where the painter ‘tricks the eye’ into thinking that a flat surface has depth. A young page boy appearing to come through a door is in fact a painting on a flat wall. The apparent perspective is created by the skill of the artist. Veronese even painted a collection of cleaning materials, brushes and cloths, accidentally left on a shelf by a member of staff. The shelf is another example of ‘trompe l’oeil’. A small dog mostly white with chestnut markings, reclines in it’s owner’s arms. He appears several times in the frescoes, sometimes snuffling around a slightly open door. Outside the house, the exact same dog is mooching around the grounds. The dog’s descendants still wander the house and gardens today, five hundred years later, they are identical to the animals in the paintings. They’ve been here longer than the current owners, who acquired the house in the 1930s and whose laundry is hanging in the ‘loggia’ of the west wing.

This is the point in the river’s journey where erosion is replaced by deposition. Until now the river has been carving out it’s channel, carrying debris downstream. The water, filled with tiny rock particles acts like sandpaper as it moves swiftly, under gravity towards the sea. Then it reaches the plains. The gradient is reduced, the river flows more slowly, dumping particles (its load) as it loses speed. The river has volume, but it’s competency for erosion is reduced. Here on the fertile plains of the Veneto, the river is modified and controlled for human use. At Dolo on the canalised stretch of the Brenta known as the Naviglio di Brenta, a dam has been created and a mill wheel installed. This water wheel has been generating power from the flow of the River Brenta since medieval times. Painters like Canaletto and Guardi came here to paint this idyllic rural scene. Water was diverted through a mill race to provide the momentum to turn the mill wheel. The mill ground the grain to provide flour for the local people. The energy of the water provided the force to turn the mill wheel. The water is used to irrigate the fields. The combination of abundant water supply and rich soil enables farmers to fill their fields with cereal crops, vines and fruit trees.

In its lower reaches the River Brenta is an important waterway linking the cities of Padova and Venice. As I look ahead I start to think about the wealthy Venetians who liked to leave the city and head into the countryside during the hot summer months. Many families built elegant country homes, known as villas, along the banks of the Brenta. Clad in their finery the Venetians would board a boat known as ‘Il Burchiello’ for a day’s excursion across the lagoon and along the canal. The ‘Burchiello’ was a magnificent vessel with a hull of polished wood. There were spacious saloons decorated with mirrors, inlaid wood and paintings of whimsical pastoral scenes. On the deck there were several viewing terraces, so that guests could enjoy the beautiful countryside. On the lagoon ‘Il Burchiello’ was powered by sail, once on the canal, horses towed the vessel forward. Many characters travelled as passengers on this luxurious boat including Casanova, the famous socialite and womaniser, Goethe, the writer, Goldoni (playwright), Lord Byron (poet) and Montaigne (diarist). The ‘Burchiello’ was a pleasure craft, an entertaining social diversion for the wealthy families of Venice. It was an opportunity to play cards, gamble, flirt and socialise, away from the prying eyes of Venice’s palaces. The watery voyage provided the gentry with one of life’s great pleasures – a day messing about on a boat, feeling the wind in your hair and enjoying the changing landscape as the views and perspectives unfurled before one’s eyes. Having experienced the joys of ‘Il Burchiello’ Lord Byron rented rooms on the Brenta Canal in 1817, whilst he completed the Fourth Canto of his epic poem ‘Childe Harold’.

LENGTHENING SHADOWS – The river meanders onwards towards the lagoon and here as the water changes from fresh water to brackish lagoon water is Villa Foscari also known as ‘Malcontenta’. Shielded from the real world by a veil of weeping willow trees draped over the river bank. This house was built by the Foscari brothers, Venetian aristocrats, keen to show visiting dignitaries the greatness of their wealth and the quality of their taste. Unfortunately one of their wives was less enamoured with her spouse than was expected. Her alleged dalliances were an embarrassment to the family and her husband. She was exiled to this house, excluded from the social scene of Venice and no doubt from her lover. This symetrically perfect Palladian villa was a gilded cage for her, a villa from whence she could gaze, with little hope of enjoying her freedom again. The waters of the Brenta move gently by and if I look carefully I may see the shadow of a beautiful silk gown, and a pale hand, resting on the window sill.

TWILIGHT HOURS – At Fusina the river decants into the lagoon, a vast watery stretch extending almost 80 kms from north to south and roughly 20 kms west to east. An expanse of mud flats, islands and treacherous channels. The lagoon is the creation of four major rivers; Brenta, Sile, Piave and Dese all homing in on the Adriatic Sea as their final destination. There’s a feeling that the rivers, when they make it to the lagoon, have completed their journey. Their unique identity is lost as their character and personality mingles with the waters of the Adriatic, blurring the lines between fresh and salt water. The lagoon creates a margin between land and sea. A hinterland which is neither ‘terraferma’ nor is it the open sea. The horizon is a smudge of grey in the distance, an indistinct, undefinable boundary, murky and unclear. There’s a gentle mantle of sea mist that drifts like a mirage just above the surface of the lagoon. The briccole, a trio of wooden poles lashed together with metal rings, mark the navigable channels as they march stoically into the distance. Peering into the evening gloom the eye gradually perceives a tower and a dome. Then the peal of a bell dances across the breeze.

The city of Venice, La Serenissima, is rising from the lagoon. A city built on sand banks and marshes. A city where the resources were fishing, boat building, a safe harbour and the determination and ingenuity of the Veneti people. Venice built it’s reputation and wealth as a trading nation with skill and tenacity. They had an excellent navy which was available to hire – they were, effectively, mercenaries. The Venetians would take on territorial disputes between neighbours in the Adriatic and Eastern Mediterranean in return for control of lucrative trading routes. By the 16th century Venice controlled the whole of the Dalmatian coastline, much of coastal Greece, Cyprus, Crete and, briefly, Constantinople. Venice was a great maritime republic. The city was cosmopolitan, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Turks and Moors all lived here. Every ship that arrived in the lagoon had to pay a tax to the city of Venice to load or unload their cargoes. I like to imagine The Customs Point ‘Punta Dogana’ in the 1500s. It would have housed one of the busiest lines of cashier’s desks in the whole of Europe. The goods and money that flooded into the city made many Venetian citizens very wealthy. These families built magnificent palaces on the Grand Canal, each one bigger and more impressive than it’s neighbour. The finest artists were recruited to decorate these sumptuous homes. Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione and Veronese spent their entire lives working in and around this city. Any Venetian will tell you that Venice was an independent city state for almost 1000 years. Their downfall came at the hands of Napoleon, in league with the Austrians in 1797. Napoleon claiming to love Venice declared St Mark’s Square ‘the finest drawing room in Europe’ whilst simultaneously looting the city and shipping many treasures to The Louvre. This offered no solace to a proud and independent people, for whom the lagoon’s watery expanse had always been their protection.

NIGHT FALL – To complete the journey, I have to make my way out to the Adriatic Sea. Following the course of the Grand Canal as it drifts lazily from right to left, reminding me that this was once the water course of the River Brenta – the final meander. The lagoon is tidal now and the fresh water of the rivers has been thoroughly mixed with the salt water of the Adriatic Sea. The fishermen’s nets hang like giant spider’s webs drying in the sun. At dawn and dusk they are lowered into the water to catch fish, crabs and molluscs as they move with the tides. Each net is known as a ‘bilancia’ which means balance. It sums up perfectly the balanced nature of the lagoon. This whole watery world is a ‘bilancia’, a carefully balanced ecosystem, where fishing and boat-building and people have long existed together, in a sometimes uneasy equilibrium. The rivers and the lagoon surround Venice with a gentle, motherly embrace.

The journey is nearly over now. The humid air is a challenge, I find myself rising, I don’t want to, but I’m going up, up, up. I can’t stop. I’ve seen it all and yet I’ve seen nothing. In just a few moments it will all start again. An infinite cycle from the mountains to the sea.

_{The Venetian Lagoon – paintings by Davide Battistin. Photos by www.greyhoundtrainers.com}

Notes:

• The river is living, it is vital, important, essential. It deserves our respect and our stewardship. The writer Robert Macfarlane is currently writing a book where he discusses the river as an animate body, a body that requires respect and guardianship. An entity that demands our respect. I am in whole hearted agreement with Macfarlane’s view.
• The Rivers Brenta, Sile and Piave create vast, arterial networks, flowing through landscape, history, memory and time. From the high peaks of the Alps to the shallows of the Adriatic Sea their journey is continuous and transcends the quotidian grind.

• The author is a Geographer and Art Historian with a special interest in Northern Italy and Venice.
• This article is a tribute to WG Sebald and his perambulations around Suffolk especially in his 1995 publication ‘Rings of Saturn’
• Discover more at www.greyhoundtrainers.com
• Other articles by the same author: Venice to Padova by the Brenta Canal
• Burchiello on the Brenta
• Villa Barbaro, Maser
• Grimsel Pass, Switzerland
• Article written 2019/2020 by Gianna Panagakis

Published – February, 2024