Wattwil-Schmerikon

After breakfast in the former convent, with really good home-made yogurt and jams, fresh bread and good coffee, we set off for the Iburg castle. The route 4 was marked the wrong way round, but this didn't confuse us for long! There were more tarmac road today, with short stretches through newly mown pastures. The way went steeply up, and when we reached the highest point at Heid (987m) there were splendid views. From there, roads and paths continued down to Walde, with an interesting church, and across a high plateau. At the hamlet of Allenwinden we finally got to look down at the lake of Zürich, and then descended steeply to St.Ursula's chapel at Rüterswil. From there we carried on down to Betzikon, through forests, grasslands and gravel roads. In the forest we found a welcome picnic spot at a public grill place. At St.Gallenkapelle we visited the church of St:Lawrence which has an impressive pilgrim stamp. From there, we wound under a modern road bridge and across the original wooden bridge over the gorge. After re-crossing the gorge on a metal bridge, we arrived at the chapel of ST.James in Neuhaus. Here the way splits, with one route going to Rapperswil, and the other to Siebnen. We had already gone by way of Rapperswil on the route from Constance, so we set off in the direction of Siebnen. Or rather we tried too, but managed to miss a signpost in a modern housing estate and ended up going at right angles to the correct route for ten minutes before realizing our mistake and retracing our steps to the correct route. We followed the path downwards past the Goldberg to Schmerikon, with spectacular views over the Lake of Zürich,and the pilgrim walkway from Rapperswil to the other side of the lake standing out clearly. After visiting the church of St.Judoc, we went down to the lakeside and strolled for a while before taking the train back to Wattwil, where we discovered two other pilgrims were overnighting at the convent, one of whom had retired from Swisscom that very day!