I don’t think I ever shared that we walked the border stretch near Cara 🇨🇭/ Carra 🇫🇷 a few weeks ago, did I? (Clearly this is news that the fediverse has been waiting for with baited breath😛!)
I love it when the 2 countries can’t even agree on spelling for place names: the near-abroad is made subtly more Other. Several great border stones and border infrastructure to keep me amused on these last steps of our epic & mundane slow walking adventure. #borderWalk #border #geography #visualMethods

Today, for Ascension weekend, we walked to Spain.
Ok, not really! We actually scrambled in the woods in the Jura mountains looking for three elusive border stones, the oldest of which was laid in 1648 when there was a border between Franche-Comté that belonged to Philip IV, king of Spain & the Pays de Vaud (then part of Berne). Although this remained an international border until 1862 (Traité des Dappes) this area is now entirely within France 🇫🇷. #BorderWalk #geography #history #mosstodon

We reached the end of the line today in Hermance, but we actually still have two holes to plug until we can officially proclaim to have walked the whole 🇨🇭🇫🇷 Geneva border. #BorderWalk #Genève #Geneva #Geography

We then got into trouble traipsing across cross-border fields, ending up in someone’s garden, trying to accurately follow the line where it left the river. « We are just trying to follow the invisible borderline» not surprisingly comes across as rather odd to people who are wondering if the walkers wandering into their land are a) lost or b) burglars! To be fair, none of this really makes any sense, does it? Other than as geographical poetry of the absurd. #borderWalk #geography #borderlines

We found ourselves in formerly Sardinian (!) territory as a splendid crested border stone across the 🇨🇭🇫🇷Hermance river reminded us that this was part of wider kingdoms in 1816, before the same stone was recarved when this area joined France, but maintaining the Sardinian royal flag. On the other side, the Geneva crest was spectacularly inaccurate, and as a result really rather cool. #borderWalk #history #borders

We joined up with the border & continued upstream, along the river Hermance. The border now runs down the middle of it here (here it was formerly along the talweg, i.e. following the deepest bit of the river bed). It is a picturesque and languid river meandering in a rural landscape punctuated by the usual border infrastructure: border stones, disused border guard buildings and rusting signs and fences. #borderWalk #geography #switzerland #visualMethods #visualEthnography #walking

It’s Sunday so off we go 🇨🇭🇫🇷boundary-walking, through fields & along the river Hermance. We walked from border stones 210 to 216 on the left bank, close to Veigy-Foncenex.
We started by stumbling upon a memorial in Crevy to some of the Righteous among the Nations, i.e. local people who helped Jewish refugees flee to Switzerland during WWII. (We reckon we’ve got about 5-6 stretches left to complete our tour, but we might stretch it out a bit!) #localHistory #borderWalk #geography #history #ww2

We wore Wellington boots today, which was inspired, because it was muddy in places, we waded through the stream used to define the 🇨🇭🇫🇷 border for some stretches, and it was POURING with rain as we turned back to the car. Home for tea after another lovely walk seeing the superb and the mundane, following an (in)visible line. How much effort goes in to making us believe in the reality of the arbitrary territories we carve out!
#BorderWalk #geography #borders #borderlands #sovereignty

Lots of lovely border stones to keep me happy along the way (left bank 72 to 85 today), large and small, old and new(ish). Some easy to see, some requiring a phone app with gps to find in brambles, some needing repair, and some behind private fences (ahem…). #BorderWalk