FORAGING FOR SUPERFOODS

Photo: aletscharena.ch

FORAGING FOR SUPERFOOD – A HIKE THROUGH THE ALPS

Elderberry, rosehip and barberry thrive bountifully on the slopes of the Swiss Aletsch Arena. The plentiful wild bushes are a veritable grocery store and pharmacy all in one: in autumn, their fruits can be used to make fine jams, juices or even spaghetti sauce – full of vitamins and other health benefits. Isabella Albrecht, from the Pro Natura Centre Aletsch, shares her favourite places for foraging on a wonderful hike through the Valais autumn landscape. (And as an aside: many of these treasures may also be found in your area, too!)

TEXT: C.C. SCHMID, TRANSLATION: NANE STEINHOFF

We have to warn you: once you have started, you soon will not be able to go past a rosehip hedge, an elderberry bush or a hawthorn without picking at least a handful of fruit or a few leaves. Walks can sometimes drag on... but when you get off the cable car in RiedMörel on a late September morning and see the sun, you will wish that this day would last forever. The air carries that faint breath of early autumn, but otherwise, here in Valais, the late summer is still in full swing on the southern slopes as you look down into the valley of the young Rhone. Isabella Albrecht makes an appearance along with a basket and walking stick and one wonders what the cheerful and youthful-looking biologist might want to do with the latter. She laughs and explains: “If a branch that I want to pick something from is out of reach, I’ll bring it closer with the stick.”

We start walking, down a wide staircase, past the school building towards the church. On the other side of the valley, the imposing peaks of the Valais mountains scratch the deep blue

Photo: Alban Albrecht sky, while Isabella raves about the intense aroma of the wild fruits and about having these nutrient- and vitamin-rich treasures on your doorstep. She speaks almost reverently about this gift that nature blesses us with every year – and we are already standing in front of an old stable made of sun-burned larch wood, in front of which a beautiful elderberry bush grows. The panicles, which in spring still bore delicate, white flowers (the scent of which is now in the form of a delicious syrup on Isabella’s storage shelf), hang full of deep-black berries. “They are bursting with vitamin C and dark plant pigments and thus give the immune system a lot of support,” says Isabella. “If children have a lot of colds, they should get a spoonful of juice every day in winter.” We carefully pick a few panicles – never too many from one bush – and continue walking.

As the asphalt road turns into a narrow path, we come across the first whitebeam tree, whose leaves, with their grey-felt undersides, shine in the sun. Its fruits are tiny apples, which are just one centimetre in diameter, and Isabella likes to cook them with a little apple juice to make a puree that she later passes through

a wide-meshed sieve. “It tastes wonderful on bread and butter,” she says with a smile.

The path leads us between isolated deciduous trees – many ash trees and maples are there – down to a dry south-west slope, from which a dusty scent of hay still rises at this time of the year. The most varied sorts of “rose apples”, as Isabella calls rosehips, grow here, and are true miracles in producing vitamins A, B and C. “In spring, you can see everything from pink to pale pink to snow white, and there are just as many different fruits in autumn. However, only the smooth specimens are edible,” reveals the expert. She strongly recommends wearing long sleeves when collecting the fruit, which she simply boils in water for an hour without having to laboriously dispose of the “itching powder” inside and then passes through a “passe-vite” with a very fine sieve plate. The little hairs from the fruit remain in the sieve and the resulting pulp is even used by the adventurous Isabella as a base for pasta sauce instead of cooked tomatoes, or she cooks the pulp with lemon juice and sugar to create a fine jam.

An old wooden gate and a small bridge further along is a path that first leads uphill and then downhill again, partly secured with ropes. Isabella shows us barberries – her favourite wild fruit – in a light forest of ash, whitebeam, birch and oak. She prefers to eat the elongated red berries, which contain potassium as well as vitamin C, as jam – boiled down with pear and acacia honey – or dried, as in the Middle East (barberries are the food of the Berbers).

Towards the end of our way down into the valley lies something of a magical chestnut grove. The Selve, which was overgrown for a long time before eventually being restored a good 15 years ago, with its dry-stone walls and wild bushes, is a place of particularly great biodiversity: in 1969, many different species of plants and animals were counted within just one square kilometre. In addition to barberry and rosehips, hawthorn and sloe peek out from the hedges, and of course Isabella also has a lot to tell us about it. The hawthorn, the home of the good fairies, is excellent for the heart, and it’s also the shrub through which Sleeping Beauty fell into her 100-year sleep. The flesh of the fruit is sweet, its skin tart, and after we have tasted a sample fresh from the tree, we set off with our harvest down to Mörel. From here, the cable car floats up to Riederalp, where, for once, we won’t spend the evening on the terrace, but in the kitchen of our holiday apartment – cooking the whitebeam and rosehip jam.

Photo: Stefanie Mattig Photo: aletscharena.ch

Isabella Albrecht. Photo: Pascal Gertschen

Photo: Robert Hansen The little guide to wild fruit picking - Only collect the fruits that you know - Only take a few fruits from each plant, never harvest plants completely empty - Always take only as much as you can process - Some fruits are inedible raw (elderberries, for example, contain sambunigrin, which only disintegrates when heated) - Always wash the fruit before processing

For more information, visit: www.aletscharena.ch

Photo: Natalya Zaritskaya, Unsplash

SPECIAL THEME: DISCOVER EUROPE’S TOP FAMILY HOTELS 2021, 2022 Fun and relaxation for the entire family

Sometimes you simply want to pack up your entire family and let someone else do the entertaining, cooking and cleaning – so all there’s left to do for you is to have fun and relax. Take a look at our selection of gorgeous European family hotels to get you inspired for your next trip.

Photo: Rachel Park, Unsplash

SPA ODER SPORT

SIE HABEN DIE WAHL

Das atemberaubende Alpenpanorama der Olympiaregion Seefeld verspricht sowohl Erholung als auch sportliche Herausforderungen der besonderen Art. Das Familotel DAS Kaltschmid ist der optimale Ausgangspunkt für einen Urlaub, der lange in Erinnerung bleiben wird.

TEXT: SILKE HENKELE I FOTOS: DAVID JOHANSSON

Ob jung oder alt, Erholung oder sportliche Herausforderungen suchend - zentral in Seefeld gelegen, bietet DAS Kaltschmid alles, was Gäste für einen perfekten Urlaub brauchen. Familie Kaltschmid, Inhaber des Hotels, meint dazu: „Wir sind auf alle Bedürfnisse eingestellt. In unseren gemütlichen Familienzimmern, den komfortablen Apartments oder den geräumigen Suiten fühlen sich Familien genauso wohl wie Singles oder Paare. Unser Angebot ist vielfältig, und passt damit perfekt zu unseren Gästen.“

So gibt es im DAS Kaltschmid zum Beispiel neben der Erlebniswasserrutsche und einem speziellen Kinderbecken den Happy Club, in dem die kleinen Gäste ab drei Jahre liebevoll betreut werden. Bei gemeinsamen Ausflügen in den Zoo oder ins Planetarium, Spaziergängen in der Natur oder Bastelaktionen, finden die Kinder schnell neue Freundinnen und Freunde. „Außerdem“, so Familie Kaltschmid, „bieten wir in unserer hauseigenen Schwimmschule Schwimmkurse an, in denen Kinder ab vier Jahren altersgerecht und von pädagogisch geschultem Personal an das Element Wasser herangeführt werden. Im Idealfall verbringt die Familie also nicht nur einen unvergesslichen Urlaub, sondern die Kleinen haben auch noch gleich Schwimmen gelernt.“

Eltern, die ihre Kinder gut betreut wissen, haben Zeit und Ruhe, sich um sich zu kümmern. Beispielsweise im Spa-Bereich, im Fitnessstudio, Panorama-Hallenbad, in der Biosauna im Solebad, oder, ganz sportlich, bei einer Partie Golf, beim Paragleiten oder Canyoning.

Genauso gerne wie Familien heißt DAS Kaltschmid Gäste ohne Kinder willkommen, die das sportliche Potential der Olympiaregion Seefeld voll auskosten wollen. Neben den bereits erwähnten Sportarten gilt es, je nach Saison, attraktive Wanderwege und bestens präparierte Skihänge und Loipen zu erkunden. Kletterangebote, Nordic Walking, Radfahr- und Mountainbiketouren ergänzen das Programm und garantieren, dass auch die ehrgeizigsten SportlerInnen ganz auf ihre Kosten kommen. Für das leibliche Wohl der Gäste im DAS Kaltschmid sorgen gleich zwei À-la-carteRestaurants. „Hier“, erklären die Inhaber, „kochen unsere Spitzenköche internationale Spezialitäten jeden Tag frisch und aus ausgewählten Zutaten. Und unser hauseigener Konditormeister zaubert täglich die leckersten Süßspeisenkreationen.“

DAS Kaltschmid. Wenn der Urlaub gelingen soll.

www.daskaltschmid.com

Während der folgenden ‚KiddiesSpezial-Wochen‘ wohnen alle Kinder bis 11 Jahre GRATIS im DAS Kaltschmid: 9. bis 30. Januar 2022 6. bis 20. März 2022 19. Juni bis 10. Juli 2022 4. bis 25. September 2022

THE BEST PLACE FOR FAMILY ADVENTURES AND RELAXATION ON THE COAST OF ISTRIA

Croatia has become one of the most popular holiday destinations for people from Germany: with its pebble beaches, clear-blue sea water and stunning nature, it is an ideal place for your next summer holiday. The best hotel for families with children – according to the Trip Advisor Traveller Choice Award 2019 – is the Maistra’s Family Hotel Amarin in Rovinj, on the west coast of Istria.

TEXT: JESSICA HOLZHAUSEN I PHOTOS: FAMILY HOTEL AMARIN

Small alleyways lead from the towering church in the old city centre towards the seaside promenade that stretches all the way to the beaches on the southeast of Rovinj. The historic town on the Istrian peninsula is one of the most romantic locations on the Adriatic coast and a great destination for family seaside holidays, too. Here, the Maistra Hospitality Group has one of its Maistra Select brand flagship hotels, the Family Hotel Amarin. For more than 50 years, Maistra has been providing high-quality tourism experiences in Croatia’s most beautiful regions.

Situated at the end of the Rovinj seaside promenade, the Family Hotel Amarin is sheltered under pine trees on a green peninsula and most of the rooms have a magnificent view over either the old city of Rovinj or the sea. The Croatian Studio Up originally designed the hotel with 280 elegant rooms and suites over four floors. The double beds have a clever design that allows guests to pull out a child’s bed at each side in the evening and store it away when it is not used during the day. Children and families were the focus right from the beginning, after all: normally, check-ins can be very boring for kids, but at Hotel Amarin, children are greeted with the so-called blu net installation, where they can jump about after being stuck in a car or plane for hours. While doing so, they will also get a first glance at the indoors and the garden pool.

A SAFE SPACE FOR LITTLE ADVENTURERS

The beautiful outdoors is dominated by a magnificent Mediterranean garden with new-generation playgrounds, which have been awarded multiple times at a European and world level. Children can explore various slides or climb ropes and, since the whole ground is car free, it is very safe to do so, while parents can relax at the nearby pool. The Amarin Kids Club has a varied programme for children, accurately developed for four different age groups. The variety of schools and classes makes sure that the hol-

iday will never get boring: children can enjoy sporty activities like swimming, dancing or sailing, or learn how to play the guitar or fly a drone. There are even S.T.E.A.M workshops: the educational approach includes arts, as well as going into the well-known STEM model of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The restaurants also cater especially to families with children: the hotel has excellent food available via a buffet, with a healthy selection of food, where parents of babies and small children can get fresh meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Close to the hotel are two additional restaurants: the Istrien Beach House, for example, is an a la carte restaurant with a stunning seaside location and some excellent Mediterranean dishes on offer. The second option, the Marsea Restaurant, is an ideal location for a light lunchtime snack or a refreshing cocktail in the shade of pine trees with a view that looks towards Rovinj’s old town centre. Additionally, there is the Pool & Chill snack bar, located directly next to the pool.

EXPLORATIONS IN NATURE AND A SPA FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Hiking and cycling trails start right at the hotel. The Western Istrian coast and its hinterland have a great network of marked cycling routes, ranging from recreational tours for the whole family to some more difficult mountain rides. The area offers ideal conditions for recreational cyclists and professionals searching for new challenges alike. Istria has a beautiful landscape and varied history, which guests can explore while cycling along the coast. Of course, Mediterranean summers are hot, but thankfully, beaches are also never far away. There are two new modern pebble beaches close to the Hotel Amarin, inviting guests for a swim or some snorkelling in the clean water. Lucky explorers will even be able to find fish, and perhaps also some shells hiding between the rocks.

While adventuring in the outdoors, swimming in the Adriatic Sea or exploring Croatia’s history and culture is, for many guests, the highlight of their stay, most of them also come away to relax from a busy work life at home. Family Hotel Amarin caters to that need with an exclusive Wellness & Spa area. Again, the hotel puts great emphasis on family holidays and provides a kids spa with treatments specially developed for children, so that the whole family can relax, daydream and unwind, before returning back to work or school – with stories about great adventures and some fond memories, too.

www.maistra.com/family-hotel-amarin-rovinj