Manuela Vigilante (2/2)

What was the most enriching part of the journey? What impressed you most on the route or in the World Heritage properties?

The whole experience itself was very enriching at the level of discoveries, culture, knowledge and at the level of relationships. Several things struck me on the route, especially when my route passed along the St. James Way. I could tell that some locals were used to welcoming pilgrims. For example, one day, as I was heading towards Burgdorf, I saw a sign saying ‘For coffee breaks turn left’. So we did (I was with my friend Nicoletta, a companion on several walks) and found a small table in the sheltered corner of the garden, where tea, coffee and other beverages were available, and there were also small plates containing neatly packaged slices of cake with an invitation to help oneself to the cake baked the day before. All offered. I took the lady's name and sent her a message of thanks.

On the other hand, as far as World Heritage properties are concerned, I was particularly struck by the motivations that led UNESCO to recognise the properties as World Heritage. People often think it is an aesthetic issue, but in reality it is not (or not only) so. And above all, I was struck by all the work behind the preparation of a dossier to submit a request for recognition to UNESCO. Years and years of hard work. And above all, every year only a few projects are chosen out of the large number of dossiers submitted. 

I carry all 13 UNESCO World Heritage properties in my heart, but one that I feel particularly attached to is the area of the Tectonic Arena Sardona . That is why when the collapse on the Great Tschingelhorn occurred in October (2024), I was very saddened and worried. In fact, two weeks later I went to the area on a mini trek because I wanted to see for myself what had happened. 

Thinking back, would you do anything differently?

No, it was a great experience and I don't think I would change anything.

What do you recommend to those who would like to try to perform a similar feat?

You definitely need patience, perseverance, method, organisational skills and a lot of flexibility. I recommend sleeping in bed and breakfasts or in small accommodations and not in hotels, so you can have an even more direct contact with the local reality and maybe even get some extra information. Some people, who were interested in the adventure I was undertaking, recommended other things to visit that I was not aware of or introduced me to other people who were perhaps in some way related to UNESCO World Heritage. For example, during my stay in Sainte-Croix, I had the opportunity to sleep in a barrel, to try drinking Absinthe "comme il faut" and also the owner of the bed and breakfast introduced me to the person who was in charge of preparing the dossier that allowed the watchmaking technique to enter the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2020. I was able to have a long interview with her.

Are you developing any other projects?

Yes, I have a number of smaller projects under way, such as the one to go and embrace the centuries-old trees counted in Switzerland (209 ‘Albracci’), to walk the perimeter of Lake Lucerne, to walk all 22 stages of the Via Francisca del Lucomagno (although I have already walked some of them thanks to the Unisco-UNESCO project) and to walk the missing sections of the Via Alpina (route number 1 of Switzerland Mobile) from Vaduz to Montreux.

But the big project I have started and which I think will last even longer than Unisco-UNESCO (which lasted five and a half years) is ‘LeggerMenTre’. Read because it will be about reading a lot and not just walking. In fact, the idea is to read two books for each canton: one written by a Swiss author and set in that canton and the other written by a foreign author. The idea is then to walk to the places mentioned in the stories. So go walking WHILE I am reading the books. And THREE because it is my third big project, after Unisco-UNESCO and From A to Z in 44 days. The idea came to me this summer when, while I was reading the book Tamangur by Leta Semadeni from Scuol, I went for a walk right in the Tamangur forest, the highest stone pine forest in Europe. Double magic because I love that tree. Completing this project means reading 52 novels, but my reading pace is unfortunately ‘sluggish’, so I anticipate a long time. Another difficulty is that I cannot find literature for each canton and especially literature translated into Italian or French (unfortunately I do not read in German). I have done a lot of research on the internet and with reader friends and have thus collected some thirty titles. I am missing some twenty, for example for the cantons Glarus, Appenzell or Schaffhausen. I even tried asking the artificial intelligence, but to no avail, and even got into an argument with it: AI recommended non-existent books by fictitious authors, complete with plot summary, which was also fictitious. Unbelievable stuff... Now I'm writing e-mails to the various cantonal libraries and I must say it's the winning key. I am getting replies from kind people who are enthusiastic about my project and have given me interesting (and above all well-founded and truthful) advice. I have promised to visit them when I am passing through on my project. If anyone has books to recommend, please do not hesitate to come forward! I also have a FB page dedicated to this, you can contact me there (Legger Men Tre).

Besides all this, thanks to a mountain guide or the SAC, I am climbing several high peaks, feats that I could not do alone.

My latest project: Since I have now become a tour guide (my FB page is called Ti prendo per Manu), I have developed an excursion to the Lodano beech forests and one to the Bellinzona castles where, in addition to talking about these UNESCO sites, I take the participants on a journey within a journey, because I illustrate the other UNESCO sites in Switzerland with a fun didactic activity and, in the meantime, tell them about my project and the nice encounters I have had. At the request of some participants, I am now organising mini-trekking tours that follow a small piece of my route and pass through one of the 13 sites scattered around Switzerland.

It's very funny because now my friends associate me a lot with both the Lodano Beech forests and the Martinsloch, so every time an article comes out in the press about them (as in the case of the collapse of rocks in the Tectonic Arena Sardona ) I immediately receive a link or photo to the article from several friends. It is very exciting to be associated with a UNESCO property.

Read part 1