Brig

Brig sits at the head of the Rhône valley where several routes meet: the Simplon south to Italy, the Furka and Grimsel east and north, and the Lötschberg tunnel under the Bernese Alps.

That junction is the whole reason for the town, and it made one man very rich.

The Stockalper palace

Kaspar Stockalper (1609–1691) held the monopoly on the salt trade over the Simplon, ran a private postal service, financed mercenary companies and lent money to half of Europe. He was, for a time, probably the richest man in Switzerland.

He built himself the Stockalperschloss between 1658 and 1678 — the largest private building of the Swiss baroque, with three towers topped by gilded onion domes named for the three magi, and an arcaded courtyard that would not be out of place in northern Italy.

The town eventually turned on him and he fled to Italy for eight years, returning only at the end of his life. The palace is now open to visitors and holds the town museum; the courtyard is free to walk into.

The Simplon

The pass road south was rebuilt by Napoleon between 1801 and 1805, so that artillery could cross to Italy, and it remains one of the great engineered roads of the Alps. The Simplon Hospice near the summit is still run by the canons of the Great St Bernard.

Underneath, the Simplon railway tunnel was the longest in the world when it opened in 1906 at just under 20 km, and it held the record for more than fifty years. Trains from Brig reach Domodossola in Italy in twenty minutes, and Milan in under two hours.

The Lötschberg line north is the other half of the junction, carrying car-shuttle trains under the mountains to Kandersteg — see driving in Switzerland.

Around the town

Brig itself is modest: an arcaded main square, the palace, and the Rhône. What it offers is proximity.

• Brigerbad — thermal baths a few kilometres away, including an open-air pool cut into a rock grotto; see thermal baths
• The Aletsch glacier — the cable cars from Mörel and Betten climb to Riederalp and Bettmeralp, car-free villages on a sunny shelf, and from the Bettmerhorn you look straight down the longest glacier in the Alps for a fraction of what the Jungfraujoch costs
• Zermatt — an hour up the side valley from Visp, one stop away
• The Goms — the high valley east towards Andermatt, with dark timber villages and cross-country skiing

Getting there

• By train — Bern an hour through the Lötschberg base tunnel; Zurich about two and a half hours; Geneva about two hours along the Rhône.
• The Glacier Express stops here between Andermatt and Zermatt.

When to go

Summer for the Aletsch and the passes; the Simplon road is open all year but the Furka and Grimsel are not. Brig is a place to change trains and spend two hours, rather than a destination in itself — but those two hours are better spent in the palace courtyard than on the platform.