The Hills

The hilly landscape in this beautiful area in Switzerland is unique far and wide. As if created artificially, the uniform hills conjure up a unique scenario depending on the mood. Whether as bright green waves in the evening sun, mystical islands under the Milky Way or dreamy snowy landscapes in the moonlight. It is no coincidence that this area is listed twice in the Swiss Federal Inventory – as a landscape and natural monument of national importance and as a moor landscape of special beauty. Of course, science has known for a long time that these unique elevations, also called “drumlins”, were formed by debris deposits of the ice-age glaciers.

The Saga

However, unusual landscape features such as these drumlins caused the devout and at the same time strongly superstitious population in ancient times to make all kinds of interpretations, which often resulted in the formation of a rich treasure of sagas and legends. And today this is considered a valuable cultural asset of a region. A legend about the origin of the drumlins dates back to a time when geological research had hardly matured. It tells of the first inhabitants of this landscape. At that time, the population soon grew to such an extent that the existing arable land in the landscape was no longer sufficient, and the people asked God the Father for more land. But he told them to remain modest and be content with what was there. The people did not follow this advice, but now turned to the devil. The devil granted them their wish on the condition that they commit themselves to him. Thereupon the devil and his assistants set about heaving the ground upwards from the bowels of the earth. The even hills were formed. The joy of the people was great at first, but it was soon discovered that the cultivation of the gained, much too steep area was very difficult. The people felt that they were being made fun of by the devil and, in revenge, placed a crucifix and/or a linden tree on each hill. Linden trees are considered to be detested by the devil because of their ancient sacredness and symbolism of power and love.

The Story

I have visited this place for the first time a couple of years ago during the summer. I fell in love immediately.
During my first visit I had a long conversation with the farmer which owns these fields, after I had played with his cute friendly dog. 

The hills are all on private property and so I always asked the landlord if it was alright to walk on his ground to take pictures.
He is a really humble and nice guy and of course really proud to own such an amazing place. Back then almost nobody knew of this place. 

He told me that I have to come back during the winter because it should look even better with snow on it.
The next winter, which came I went back and took my first snow pictures. 

I posted it on Facebook and Instagram. And with taking that step everything had changed.

My picture went viral after a repost from a Instagram page with several million followers. 

The Story

From one day to another the whole world wanted,to photograph this place.
And the more pictures where on social media, the more wanted to visit it.
The Farmer was still very proud of his land and had no problem with the nearly up to 30 people a day that visited.
He even put up a sign with information, at the place from where we mostly would shoot and also mentioned myself in it.

At the end he also made a marker-point on Google maps, just to make sure that all the photographers came to the right place, because many just crossed through  the surrounding fields and often destroyed the property of his neighbours.
I used to visit him minimum 5 times a year and we always had a good talk and much fun.
But like always. All good things must come to an end.
The more people knew about it, the more people with a poor mindset visited it.
And after having too many problems with visitors, especially visitors who just didn’t respect the property of his neighbours. He ended up having too many complaints from all the farmers nearby.
So he decided to close this place for the public.

Since August 2021 it is no longer possible to take pictures of this amazing place.
This Collection of 6 pictures is an homage to all the amazing moments which I had in the hills during the past years.
It contains my 6 favorite works out of dozens of visits.
I hope you like it as much as I like it. And i hope you can feel the magic of the Swiss Hills.