The GR5 Trail - Vosges and Jura. Elizabeth Smith

      Vosges landscape from Le Grand Ballon (Section 6)

      In the north of the region the Northern Vosges is a land of tranquil forests where people are few and wildlife is undisturbed. Nature has eroded the sandstone here to leave spectacular rock pinnacles, often with the half-forgotten ruins of a medieval castle perched precariously above the treetops.

      In the Central and Southern Vosges the forests have their own surprises. The enigmatic ruins of the Mur Païen and the nearby convent of Mont Ste-Odile are shrouded in legend and mystery (Section 4). Footpaths lead through the age-old winegrowing towns and villages on the edge of the Alsace Plain and up through the trees to open summit pastures. There is so much to discover here – do you linger to savour the charm of old Alsace, with its cobbled lanes and half-timbered houses, or do you press on up to the windswept hilltops, where the view over the patchwork plain extends out to the distant Alps?

      Further south the limestone of the Jura lends its own unique character to the landscape. Isolated lookout points give wide views over the seemingly endless blanket of trees below. Elsewhere, rivers have cut down through the limestone to produce impressive gorge scenery, with narrow defiles leading between rocky crags. Joux Castle, surely one of the most stunningly sited strongholds in all of France, stands guard over one such narrow rocky cleft (Section 10). The rivers can form gentle backwaters where trout linger in shaded pools, or they can have more dramatic moods – at Saut du Doubs the thunder of rushing water can be heard long before the waterfall comes into sight (Section 9).

      Special mention should be made of the wall of cliffs by Le Mont d’Or (Section 11), where the clifftop path provides magnificent vantage points over the expanse of the Swiss Jura.

      This book is a practical guide to the principal north–south walking route through this varied landscape, along the GR5/GR53. The 687.5km (427-mile) waymarked path traverses the entire length of the Vosges, and then climbs up onto the plateau of the Haut-Jura before dropping down to Nyon on the shores of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman). The GR5 is one of the great walking routes across Europe, crossing the continent from the Dutch coast to the Mediterranean, and the route described here is the central section (518km), from the Vosges down to Lake Geneva. In addition, the GR53 in the Northern Vosges (169.5km) is described as an offshoot of the GR5 that allows walkers to complete the entire chain of the Vosges. These quiet hills of the Northern Vosges are often overlooked by visitors, yet have become a personal favourite of ours.

Landscape

      In the Northern Vosges the low, rounded hills are mostly formed from eroded sandstone, but in places where it is more resistant to erosion, prominent rocky outcrops remain. These isolated high points make obvious defensive sites, and the sandstone castles built on them can look like extensions of the rock itself. Further south in the Vosges this layer of sandstone has been eroded away completely to reveal gneiss and granite, harder rock which makes up the higher land, the Ballons des Vosges (Sections 5 to 7), with massive, flat-topped summits and ridges. The east face of the range, which follows the fault line of the Rhine Valley, is steeper than the west and in places forms a line of impressive cliffs. Glaciation has left its mark on these hills. Valleys were widened in some places to form massive, bowl-shaped cirques which are now the sites of glacial lakes. A series of such lakes, including Lac Blanc and Lac Noir, lies just below the cliffs.

      Above the forest, the tops of the hills are open pasture. The very highest pastures are naturally clear of trees as a result of exposure, but others have traditionally been kept clear by grazing. Below the forest, the lower slopes to the south and east are clothed in vineyards. Winemaking in Alsace dates back many centuries, and has given rise to a whole string of inviting little villages in the valleys.

      South of the Vosges a mix of sedimentary rocks forms the low land around Belfort, where the GR5 goes through areas of farming and forestry.

      Just south of Vandoncourt the striking rock arch of Pont Sarrazin (Section 8) is the first unmistakable sign that the path has reached the limestone that forms the basis of the scenery for the rest of the route to Lake Geneva. The limestone of the Jura creates a landscape distinct from the Vosges. Rivers have cut deep gorges and often flow underground through caverns. One of the highlights of the GR5 is where it follows the River Doubs as it flows through a series of wooded gorges along the Swiss frontier (Section 9).