Roads of the world

The sheer drop of the rock face looks as if it might lead straight into the depths of the underworld, but there is an easy way down—321 steps from the parking lot. Seen from the bottom, the gorge that winds its way from the Swiss city of Chur up to the Splügen Pass is no less awe-inspiring. The pair of nearly black cliff faces seem to almost be thrusting themselves into one another, as if the force of the water had only temporarily torn the rocks asunder. No wonder this path through the gorge hewn by the Hinter Rhine is known as Via Mala—the evil road. Even the Romans were said to have been familiar with this Alpine crossing after a commander named Stilicho marched his army through it in AD 395, and it was first mentioned in a document in 1219. Even then it was passable by cart, despite being narrow and dangerously close to the precipice.

“Sheer, bare walls of glistening rock towering many hundreds of meters high, making anyone at their base feel as desperate as a prisoner in an ice-cold cistern,” was how John Knittel described the Via Mala in his 1934 novel of the same name. The story revolves around the owner of a sawmill, Lauretz, a drunkard and rake who harasses his family, until one night they join forces to murder him, the terror of the abyss a reflection of human nature. “His excesses were astounding,” writes Knittel of the villain. “The specter and sheer horror of the Via Mala had taken control of him.”

Many a bleak tale would emerge from such a gloomy gorge. A ballad dating back to 1705 tells the following story: a priest had impregnated a “strong, young peasant girl.” Promising to marry her, he lures her to a nocturnal meeting by the stone bridge. “As if possessed by the devil himself, the murderer seized the poor maiden and—even though she was with child—stabbed her and threw her over the bridge into the depths of the rocky ravine.”

(Text: Barbara Schäfer, Photo: Frank schultze)