In her red headscarfEva Wachter is easily recognisable no matter how colourful the mountain flower meadow around her is. Once a week, the graduate herb expert takes families on a herb ramble in the Brandnertal. This time she is taking guests, grandson Moritz and dog Latisha up to the Tschengla. “Particularly valuable herbs grow up there,” explains Eva, who knows over 500 medicinal plants by name and knows what they are grown for – and against. And if one should slip her mind, Moritz helps her out: her 12-year-old grandson can sometimes give his Herb Granny a run for her money.

It is fantastic up here on this plateau which, at an altitude of 1,250 metres, lies at the entrance to the Brandnertal: between the thinning larches whose green needles gradually turn yellow in the late summer. Against the impressive mountain panorama of the Rätikon. In the middle of the meadow which smells so lovely of summer, of the outdoors, of kinds of flowers. Cow bells ring in the distance. And the view across the five surrounding valleys is enough to make your heart skip a beat.

Eva Wachter roams through the countryside with us big and small herb apprentices: she finds eyebright, common yarrow and ribwort on today’s ramble.“ Sometimes we dry the herbs afterwards in order to have an exquisite tea later on,” she explains. “ Frequently, however, the guests and I mix the herbs to make a tincture or we make an ointment in a herb workshop following the tour.”

It is great to be able to not only know the difference between larches and fir trees or between poppies and dandelions. When you can suddenly recognise horsetail, burnet and coltsfoot in a mountain meadow, your experience with Mother Nature is much more intensive, you simply see more when you are out and about in the great outdoors.