Walking Easy: in the Swiss and Austrian Alps [Paperback]

Chet Lipton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2007

Stretch your legs and your sense of adventure! Become an Easy Walker and enjoy the wonderful walking trails found in the Swiss and Austrian Alps. Using this guide and its maps, you can explore beautiful footpaths through mountain meadows and hamlets.

Choose routes starting from one of the nineteen base villages selected by the author for their magnificent mountain locales, charm, availability of public transportation, and accommodations. Rated at one of three levels of ease (“gentle”, “comfortable”, and “more challenging”), each walk takes from two to six hours, excluding “take in the view” breaks or picnics along the way.

Whether you want to know the rules of the trail, which local hiking maps to purchase, what clothing to wear, or how to get discounts on travel to Europe, this book helps you get the most out of your alpine walking experience.

Visit: Lenk, Kandersteg, Gstaad, Saas-Fee, Zermatt, Verbier, Arosa, Samedan/St. Moritz, and Engelberg in Switzerland; Alpach, Kitzbuehel, Neustift, Seefeld, Zell am Ziller, Mieming, Badgastein, and Kaprun/Zell am See in Austria; and the cities of Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Become an Easy Walker and enjoy the wonderful walking trails found in the Swiss and Austrian Alps. Using this guide and its maps, you can explore beautiful footpaths through mountain meadows and hamlets.Choose routes starting from one of the nineteen base villages selected by the authors for their magnificent mountain locales, charm, availability of public transportation, and accommodations. Rated at one of three levels of ease (gentle, comfortable, and more challenging), each walk takes from two to six hours, excluding "take in the view" breaks or picnics along the way.Whether you want to know the rules of the trail, which local hiking maps to purchase, what clothing to wear, or how to get discounts on travel to Europe, this book helps you get the most out of your alpine walking experience. (5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 240 pages, b&w photos, maps)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Chet Lipton became enchanted with the incredible alpine trail system during travels with family and he’s been walking it ever since. Lipton authored first editions of the Walking Easy books, including Walking Easy in the Italian and French Alps and Walking Easy in the Swiss and Austrian Alps with his late wife and hiking partner, Carolee. Lipton’s updated this edition with new information and greater insights.

Product Details

• Paperback: 223 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (February 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595413307
• ISBN-13: 978-0595413300
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #467,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Travel > Europe > Switzerland
  • #56 in Books > Travel > Europe > Austria

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for planning, not for the trails, July 24, 2009

By 

Ann Comoglio "acomoglio" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking Easy: in the Swiss and Austrian Alps (Paperback)

I used this book (along with a few others) to help plan a 2 week trip to Switzerland in June 09 with my family. The book focuses on hiking from: Zermatt, Saas-Fee, Lauterbrunnen, Kandersteg, Samedan, Arosa, Engelberg, and Meiringen in Switzerland (half of the book is devoted to Austrian hikes). For each hiking base, there are several walks of varying ability (easy to challenging), along with other options in case of rain. This book should NOT be used as a trail guide--the descriptions are more general of the whole hike, and do not have enough specifics to guide a hike. The maps are useful only to show where a hike is relative to the base city and should not be relied upon. This book needs a serious editing--lots of typo's and some elevation readings that are not to be trusted. I don't think the photos in this book add much and are so generally labeled, that one cannot be sure they represent the hike or area on the page. Based on this book's recommendations, we went to Kandersteg and enjoyed the village and its walks very much.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Made our trip, May 16, 2006

By 

W. Jones (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walking Easy in the Swiss & Austrian Alps, 3rd (Walking Guides) (Paperback)

I used this book as a basis for a 3 week trip to the Swiss and Austrian Alps and it was invaluable. We stayed in recommended towns, Lauterburnen, Zermatt, and Alpbach and they were perfect jump off spots for hikes. We are day hikers, so it was nice to return to comfortable hotels in the towns. All of the hikes were on the mark for difficulty and scenery. I combined some of the shorter hikes into longer ones and used a couple of other books to find ways to extend some of the hikes in the book. We had a fantastic vacation and owe much of the success to this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Walking in Wengen, June 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Walking Easy in the Swiss & Austrian Alps, 3rd (Walking Guides) (Paperback)

We followed the trails suggested in the Bernese Oberland section. We chose a walk rated as having medium diffiulty for the book. The descent was so steep that my 30-something walks-a-mile-to-work-everyday husband was not able to walk at all the next day because of the extreme pain in his knees. We missed out on all our subsequent hiking. We later learned (from our swiss maps) that the red-white-red trail markings meant "paths for experienced hikers". The yellow markings mean paths for everyone. There was no mention of this distinction in the book. And given the book's title, we would have thought that all of the walks would have been pretty easy. What would we have done if we were older or had our children along? I think hikers should ask their hosts in Switzerland to recommend walks. Our hotel (the Hotel Regina in Wengen) had many easy walks to suggest. I'd get a good map and order something better to read.