Valais

Celtic tribes held the upper Rhône valley before the Romans took it; the Roman town of Octodurus, today's Martigny, guarded the road over the Great St Bernard Pass, whose name comes from the hospice founded in the 11th century. The abbey of Saint-Maurice, founded in 515 on the site of the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, is one of the oldest monasteries in Europe still in use.

For centuries the Valais was ruled by the prince-bishops of Sion, whose fortresses of Valère and Tourbillon still crown the city. German-speaking settlers from the north filled the upper valley in the early Middle Ages, and the German Upper Valais came to dominate the French-speaking lower valley, which it conquered from Savoy in the 15th century. The Valais was an ally of the Swiss rather than a member; Napoleon made it the French department of Simplon in 1810, and it joined the Confederation as a canton only in 1815.

The 19th century brought the mountaineers. Edward Whymper's party made the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865, and four of its members died on the descent; the tragedy made Zermatt famous. Railways, hydroelectric dams, chemical works and tourism followed. Climate change is now reshaping the canton, with shrinking glaciers and landslides; in 2025 a glacier collapse buried much of the village of Blatten in the Lötschental.

The Valais is bilingual: most people speak French, in the lower valley and Sion, and about a quarter speak German, in the Upper Valais above Sierre and Salgesch. Walliserdeutsch is one of the hardest Swiss German dialects for outsiders, and the canton is strongly Catholic, with processions, wayside chapels and saints' days kept up in the villages.

The most distinctive tradition is the combat de reines, fights between the black Hérens cows, which lock horns to establish the leader of the herd; the winners are crowned queens at regional contests and a cantonal final in Aproz. Carnival in the Lötschental brings the Tschäggättä, figures in fearsome carved wooden masks and sheepskins. The bisses, centuries-old irrigation channels cut into the slopes, were maintained collectively by villages and are now walking paths.

Valaisans have a reputation for independence from Bern, a love of their wine, and a sometimes wary attitude to rules made elsewhere. Wooden granaries raised on stone slabs to keep out mice are a signature of village architecture.

About 360,000 people live in the Valais. Sion, the capital, has about 35,000; Martigny, Monthey, Sierre, Visp and Brig are the other towns, strung along the valley floor. Zermatt has around 6,000 residents but many more beds for visitors, and most side-valley villages are small.

Tourism is the largest employer in the mountains, alongside construction and hydroelectric power; the Grande Dixence dam above the Val d'Hérémence is one of the tallest in the world. In the valley, the Lonza chemical and pharmaceutical works at Visp are a major employer, and farming means vines, apricots, pears and cattle. Many young people leave for Lausanne, Geneva or Bern to study.

Life follows the seasons: winter and summer rushes in the resorts, the grape harvest in autumn, and a quieter rhythm in between. Second homes, hazards from melting permafrost and glaciers, and the cost of protecting villages from floods and debris flows are live issues.

Raclette is the Valais dish, made with Raclette du Valais cheese: half a wheel is heated by the fire and the melted surface scraped onto potatoes boiled in their skins, with pickled onions and gherkins. The assiette valaisanne, a platter of air-dried beef, dried ham and bacon with cheese and rye bread, is a classic mountain meal, and Valais rye bread holds its own protected designation.

Cholera, from the Goms district of the Upper Valais, is a covered pie of potatoes, leeks, apples and cheese. Apricots are the summer fruit of the valley, eaten fresh, baked in tarts and distilled into Abricotine; pears become Williamine, a pear brandy.

The Valais is Switzerland's largest wine canton. Fendant is the local name for Chasselas, and native grapes include the white Petite Arvine, Amigne and Humagne Blanche and the red Cornalin and Humagne Rouge; Dôle is a red blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. At Visperterminen in the Upper Valais, vines grow above 1,000 metres and make the white Heida.

Zermatt and the Matterhorn are the headline: the car-free village, the Gornergrat rack railway to a ridge facing the peak and Monte Rosa, whose Dufourspitze is the highest summit in Switzerland, the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise cable car, and walks to the Riffelsee lake. Saas-Fee, in the next valley, is also car-free, set among glaciers with a revolving restaurant high on the Allalin.

The Aletsch Glacier, the largest in the Alps and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is seen best from the Eggishorn, reached by cable car from Fiesch, or from the car-free villages of Riederalp and Bettmeralp, with the old Aletsch forest of stone pines on the ridge. Brig has the 17th-century Stockalper Palace, and Leukerbad has thermal baths.

Sion's old town sits below the hill of Valère, whose basilica holds one of the oldest playable organs in the world, and the ruins of Tourbillon. Martigny has the Fondation Pierre Gianadda's art and Roman remains, Saint-Maurice its abbey treasury, and the road climbs from there to the Great St Bernard Pass. Verbier, above the Val de Bagnes, is part of the Four Valleys ski area and hosts a summer classical music festival, and Crans-Montana sits on a sunny plateau above Sierre.