I get a lot done when left to wander by myself.

I love to walk around pointlessly – or seemingly so. There is always something to see or a topic to muse over to the soundtrack of footsteps. It’s not like I’m some recreated nineteenth century Parisian flâneur wannabe (the stock character of the grands boulevards dandy, Baudelaire’s ‘gentleman stroller of city streets’) because I’m (first and most obvious point coming to mind) not male and am thus inclined to have a poke through supermarkets I encounter along the way, just for the sake of having a browse and seeing what’s available… My strolls aren’t gentrified and dignified strolls to see and be seen, but more along the lines of scurried anonymity (or so I hope anyway).

I walk to think and it gives me a great time to reflect. For instance, in the Polish ski resort town of Zakopane I opted for trudging the snow-filled backstreets rather than joining the jostle for the cable car bound for the slopes. It was somewhere on this afternoon of pine tree branches weighed down with snow, black-shawled babushki and stringy smoked cheeses that I decided to study in Russia – and voila! The rest is history!

But anyway, without any claims and profundity and in this vein - I’ve covered most of the territory of the co-joining Crans and Montana on foot. I’ve figured out the town centres (not that it was rocket science), located the funicular and found some pretty neat tracks through the woods to lakes and secluded chalets nestled amongst the snowy trees. Hmm… on heading back home again I’ve also realised that the public transport is free… but where would be the fun of discovery if I was sitting on a bus seat!