by Anju Fernandes
PureTravel Writing Competition 2023
How do you explain visiting your sister’s home in quaint little Hofstetten-Fluh
in Switzerland and accidentally falling in love with a Chateau in France a few
steps away from the place she calls home. Confusing, right? But, let me try …
I heard about the Chateau Landskron long before I ever set foot in Fluh over
daily calls with my sister whose interest was piqued by the ruins of the
rectangular tower she saw everyday from her porch and thanks to my nephew
and niece who never failed to show me a glimpse of the ruins over our weekly
facetime….
And so it was that one fine morning during my stay in Switzerland, I set off with my sister on a hike to the chateau to visit the ruins and greet perhaps the spirit of the Chateau’s most famous prisoner, Monsieur Bernard Duvergier who was imprisoned here in 1769 and stayed on until 1790.
When he was finally rescued, he had so wasted away both in body and mind that he died in hospital just a few weeks after his release. The hike to the chateau itself is exactly out of a page in a fairy tale book that I read a long time ago ( the likes that you get to see in quaint libraries in the convent I used to go to : will soon include
this place by the sea in another travelogue of mine; but I am digressing…) Amidst avenues of cherry trees and apple blossoms, little elves carrying lamps peeped out and said hello from the gardens of every pretty house that dotted the hills on this trail … Twenty minutes into this trail and another ten minutes through a dense patch
of woods, we noticed the silhouette of the chateau and as I walked towards the
expansive grounds, the centuries old fort seemed to call out to me … The chateau, built around the 13th century, officially part of France, is flanked by two gorgeous villages – Leymen in France and Fluh in Switzerland. The ruins courageously stand between the two, welcoming visitors, ramblers, day hikers, mindfulness practitioners
and the normal likes of me with a stoic calm you experience as soon as you set foot on its grounds. I walked in wonder through the winding stairs and the semi arched walkways and I climbed the still-strong ruins of the ramparts, eagerly wanting to meet the prisoner whose languishing soul reached out to me in the daily calls I made to my sister…
Finally, I stood before the door of the prison which housed its oft-heard about and forgotten inmate who spent his life within these walls for 20 long years and some part of my heart broke into a sparkling million pieces. If you have ever experienced being ecstatic and grief stricken at the same time, you would know what I am talking
about. A feeling which went something like: “ Most delighted to meet you Monsieur Duvergier, but too sad we couldn’t actually meet because believe me, if we met, we could have talked about the hills and the valley down there , our favourite songs, of how the winds blow so strong up here and even share a meal or two under starlit skies…”
So, If you happen to pass by Fluh in Switzerland or Leymen in France…hike up a bit and be sure to visit the chateau… whisper a greeting and blow a kiss through the stone arch windows into the winds and let me know if this place affected you the same way as it did me …and if this perhaps is not something you would do, then visit the Chateau Landskron for the architecture, the history, the views of the wonderful city of Basel that will take your breath away and of course, for the unforgettable experience places like these bring to the seeking soul of travellers like you and me …
Photo by Samuel Ferrara on Unsplash
