The Via Alpina Red runs through Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, and finishes near Monaco. When I lay it out like that for friends and family, it sounds like we’re ticking off countries.
In reality, it’s more like we keep drifting in and out of countries, sometimes without even realizing until the trail signs change or the language in a hut shifts.
Due to the time limit of our visa we aren’t doing the trail in the usual 117 Sections. We have adjusted it with the plan to complete the hike in 88 days, giving us two days up our sleeve on our visa in case it’s needed.
Hello borders and hello Alps
Of course this may go out the window in the first week, but as we’ve had to book many alpine huts in advance, it’s closer to the Great Divide Trail with a “scheduled” feel to it than the Great Himalaya Trail in Nepal which had a lot of flexibility.
Italy shows up again and again and again and again. It’s the first entry point and then keeps returning throughout the summer. Early on it’s heat in the valleys and steep climbs out of villages that feel almost too low for what’s coming. Later, it comes back in higher alpine sections where things feel more remote and more exposed.
Slovenia is one of the first longer continuous stretches. The Julian Alps will rise quickly out of forest and valley. It’s also where the rhythm of our thru-hike starts to settle.
Austria keeps appearing in and out of the route, more than almost anywhere else. It doesn’t dominate in one block, but shows up constantly as a connector between bigger sections.
That’s probably how we’ll experience it too: not as one long passage, but as repeated returns to familiar alpine systems, huts, and valleys that feel consistent even when everything else is shifting.
I don’t think we’ll mind schnitzel being a recurring option!
Germany and Liechtenstein are much shorter. We move through them quickly, almost like transitions between larger alpine regions. They matter in the sense that the landscape changes subtly, but they don’t hold us for long enough to feel like full chapters of the walk.
Switzerland is one of the major sustained sections. Once we’re in, we stay in it for a while.
The terrain may feel more engineered in places, with trails that are carefully maintained, but also more serious in terms of exposure and weather decisions. It’s a country where the mountains feel both accessible and uncompromising at the same time.
France is the biggest continuous stretch of the whole route. This is where we spend a long, uninterrupted block of time moving through the Alps without switching in and out of borders.
It seems it will be more expansive, with long days and a sense of settling into a rhythm that lasts for weeks rather than days. If anything, this is where the walk probably becomes most “continuous” in the way people imagine a thru-hike.
Monaco is the endpoint, but more as a marker than a hiking destination. It represents the shift out of the mountains rather than part of the alpine journey itself. We aren’t even staying the night (straight on a train to Nice after we finish the trail)…
