Huguenot and Waldensian trail

19 September 2023

The European Cultural Route of the Huguenot and Waldensian trail celebrates its completion in Thayngen (Canton Schaffhausen) on 24 September. It connects French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland with Piedmont, southern France and Germany.

The Stiftung VIA – Auf den Spuren der Hugenotten und Waldenser (VIA Foundation – In the Footsteps of the Huguenots and Waldensians) has been working on realising this route through Switzerland since 2011. Local associations in Geneva, Vaud, Aargau, Zurich and Schaffhausen have supported the VIA Foundation in implementing the project.

On Sunday, 24 September, guests from Switzerland, France and Germany and a choir from the mountain village of Rorà in the Waldensian valleys of Piedmont will celebrate the opening of the last stretch of the Cultural Route.

The unifying element is the memory of refugees who fled in their thousands from southern France and Piedmont from 1685 onwards, travelling from Geneva via Bern to the border in Schaffhausen. They were then able to build a new existence in various German principalities.

An information stele will be unveiled at the border in Barzheim. The day will end at 4 p.m. with a celebration in the Reformed Church in Thayngen, accompanied by the Waldensian Choir. The Ukrainian author Olena Pantsiuk will read from her memories as a war refugee.

(Source and further information: Stiftung VIA – Auf den Spuren der Hugenotten und Waldenser)