Best home base for hiking Valais wine country

Traveling from Geneva to Valais. Would like to do day hikes in wine country as well as easy alpine hiking, possibly in Zermatt. What is the best town(s) to use as a home base? We will have 6 days to explore. Do we need maps for trails and if so where do we get them?

Thx

For convenience of accessing both valley, hillside and mountains in the Valais region from one place well served by public transport, consider a larger town such as Sion or Sierre, or find a hotel at one of the villages with a railway station, anywhere on the main line railway between Martigny and Brig. From there you would be able to walk in the valley and take trains or buses to other places in the valley or higher up such as Zermatt.

Traditional paper walking maps (Swiss national survey or Kummerley & Frey) can be purchased in book shops and newsagents in the local area.

shop.swisstopo.admin.ch/en

Online you can look at Schweiz Mobil: www.schweizmobil.ch/de/wanderland.html

www.schweizer-wanderwege.ch/de/wandern/wanderland-schweiz

Another way is to find the large poster wall map of walking routes that are placed near railway stations, then photograph it with your mobile phone or digital camera.

Hi Riley,

Welcome to MySwissAlps.

I agree with 1960man. Best to choose a base close to the railway stations. Sierre and Sion are two of the more established towns in the region, with good transport links, so would make a convenient base to explore the Valais' wine region.

There's a 6km vineyard trail between Sierre and Salgesch, which also features a wine museum. Might be worth a visit. There is a Tourist Office in Sierre where you can get various local hiking maps and information.

You can find various hiking options in Zermatt from the following link: www.myswissalps.com/zermatt/activities

Regards,

Anna

regards,

Anna