Along the Frick Valley’s cherry trail

The Fricktaler Chriesiwäg (Frick Valley cherry trail) is a family-friendly introduction to an easygoing landscape. Last week, I sampled its virtues just in the nick of time.The Fricktal is 20 minutes away from Basel by train, in Canton Aargau. When I joined friends for a half-day walk through gently rolling hills, starting from the Frick train station, our route began with a saunter along the cherry trail.

Trees were leafing out, but we caught a few blossoms under blue, blue skies. Each year, when the fruit is ripe, the Aargau Fruit Producers Association will invite hikers to sample directly from trees marked in blue. How thoughtful. How Swiss!

As if to one-up the cherry trees, and compete with the white-puffed sky above, apple blossoms were popping out as we walked by.

A good friend once gave me a calendar notebook illustrated only with the red benches that appear along just about every Swiss Wanderweg-with-a-view. On the cherry trail, we found one and stopped to take in the view.

We passed farmhouses fronted with fields dotted bright yellow, and of course, it wouldn’t be Swiss farmland without Swiss cows. There were even a few stray tulips, pressing their point: red trumps green. Ahead, the road stretched to the clouds behind an expanse of rapeseed.

The pastoral setting of our walk was the ideal excuse to put my feet in boots, a hat on my head, and take a walk early in the season. Steeper trails can wait.