The Underground Lake of St Leonard and The Torrent Neuf

Today we drove down the hill off the mountain and went to the town of St Leonard, about 7 km from Sion. We visited the underground lake there, Europe's largest subterranean lake. Tourists can go inside in small boats and so we did. A little spooky!

We then went in search of the Torrent Neuf, which is a 500 year old bisse around the town of Saviese. Bisses are small waterways constructed by the Swiss to channel water around the mountains for irrigation purposes. Many have been adapted to form walks, to enable hikers to enjoy spectaculars views. This bisse is particularly spectacular as it clings to the high rockfaces around the mountains and cable bridges have been built so you can cross the valleys.

The weather wasn't great so the pictures are a little dark but this is the view down the Rhone Valley.

One of the cable bridges. This one I enjoyed on my own but on the previous one a bunch of kids came on whilst I was crossing and shook it about! Very scary!

This is one of the bridges viewed from further down.

This shows the bisse, with the footpath alongside it.

This poster shows people of yesteryear who maintained the bisses, standing on single planks on the rockfaces, 100's of metres up - women included!