Martigny

 

TJ and Suz were both in need of new hiking shoes, as the lightweight ones we came with were not holding up to the constant pounding with heavy backpacks. Today we went in search of a sporting goods store. Martigny has several. We chose Jean Pellissier Sport, a local store found in an industrial section of the city. It was well worth the walk. They had a broad selection of various gear and clothing for outdoor activities, including hiking shoes and boots for both the “middle mountains” (like what we are planning to hike) and the “high mountains” (the glaciers and high peaks). The customer service was superb and we walked out with comfortable, supportive boots.

This city is definitely worth a day’s visit. We visited a Roman amphitheater that was build in the 2nd century and other ancient Roman ruins that had been excavated in the 20th century.

Nearby is the Giannada Foundation Museum, which houses a display of Roman and indigenous artifacts, sculptures, an automobile museum, and an art museum. The featured display currently is a large collection of works by Albert Anker, a Swiss artist. The collection focuses on Anker’s portrayal of childhood, often through portraits of his own children. He is well-known for highlighting various aspects of late 19th-century Swiss culture and daily life, as we saw in the paintings on display, which showed children playing, reading, studying, napping, grieving, at birth and in death.

Finally, we went in search of local wine. We found it at Provins Boutique, a wine bar and wine store. The Valais region of Switzerland grows 90 different types of grapes for wine production. Provins Boutique purchases a variety of these types, and makes their own wines. The unaged wines are stored in barrels and then transported up to the “middle mountains,” where they are stored in a large cavern at an altitude of 2,200 meters for 2-3 years before being bottled for sale. We were offered samples of 6 different wines and settled on a bottle of Cornalin, a dry, robust wine that paired well with the beef and vegetable soup we prepared for dinner.

Tomorrow we head into the mountains. We will most likely not have WiFi again until early next week, when we reach Aosta, and will pause our posts until then.