Gampel - Salgesch

After an hour along the Rhone, we cross the Rhone plain to Turtmann. People with eye ailments used to make pilgrimages to the Kastler above the village. After crossing the Rhone again at the Feschelschlucht, we follow the old church path to Leuk. The first thing we encounter is the baroque Sabastians chapel at the plague cemetery. The nobility of Leuk had already converted to the Reformed faith, but the powerful and wealthy Michael Mageran wanted to become governor and reconverted to the old faith – the Reformation in Valais had finally extinguished after a hundred years of back and forth. In the charnel house of the St. Stephen’s church, incorruptible Death mocks the extravagant clergy and nobility in two murals, viewed by more than 20,000 silent skulls. Over the old Dala bridge and through beautiful vineyards we enter the Rebarena of Salgesch, where the Knights of St. John ran the central hospice for pilgrims in Valais for four hundred years.