Valderi, Valdera, Ouch

I'm walking a line between pleasure and pain.

The pain is in my right pinkie toe, bruised and pinched in its hiking boot and whimpering with every step.

The pleasure is in everything else.

Alpine peaks towering above are capped with snow, though it's balmy June.

The sun warms me and an intermittent breeze, scented not unpleasantly with fodder, cools me while gently stirring fields of wildflowers on both sides of my path. Again and again, I pause to raise my camera and frame the flowers in my viewfinder, and just as often I lower the camera without pressing the shutter. The view is simply too extravagant to capture on film.

The hiking in Switzerland is some of the best in the world, and can be as difficult or leisurely as you choose to make it. I, perhaps, chose too challenging an option when I had Ryder-Walker Alpine Adventures plan an independent three-day village-to-village hike for me, and ended up with blisters, bruises and muscle aches. But my six- and seven-hour treks through mountain passes and across valleys also provided ample opportunity to appreciate the nation's southeastern and largest canton, Graubuenden.

Graubuenden is home to tony resort towns - St. Moritz, Klosters (a favorite hangout of Prince Charles) and Davos - as well as to small farming villages in the Engadine Valley, the heart of the Romansch culture. One percent of Switzerland's population speaks Romansch, a Latin-based language and one of the nation's four official languages, along with German, Italian and French.

At the Engadine Museum, an absorbing house museum in Scuol, most interpretive placards are in Romansch, some include German and Italian, but none are in English. And so I can only guess what a wooden contraption labeled "Rumpelbock, circa 1900" might do. (Spin straw to gold, perhaps?)

For each day of hiking, I tote only a day pack containing my Swiss Pass, which I can flash to ride trains, buses, gondolas and ski lifts (the latter two may require a small additional fee) and other transportation, a collapsible hiking stick I call my third leg, water bottle, picnic supplies, camera, basic first aid kit and rain gear. The rest of my luggage travels without me on the efficient Swiss rail system. With the help of hotel staff, my bags go to the station each morning to travel alone to the town where I end my day's trek.

Ryder-Walker offers group guided hiking tours, but I enjoy the meditation of solo hiking and opt for an independent trip. The company supplies maps and written directions, train schedules, information on culture and cultural quirks, sightseeing suggestions, packing lists, first aid tips for aching feet and knees and training tips.

The route Ryder-Walker planned for me has great variety of scenery and terrain. While challenging, it is certainly never dull.

Getting lost on Switzerland's clearly-marked hiking trails is virtually impossible no matter how terrible one's sense of direction -- and mine is bad. I prove many times that the directions Ryder-Walker supplied are not idiot-proof, yet always end up at the right place, even if I do climb an unnecessary mountain along the way.

Swiss trails are marked with red and white paint on rocks, trees and fences, and as long as you walk from marker to marker, you are en route to somewhere. Signs at trail intersections indicate directions to towns, hiking times (for the fit locals -- you'll want to time yourself to estimate your own times in comparison) and the path to trains, buses and gondolas, should you want to throw in the hiking stick and ride.

I start my journey with a night in the Hotel Guardaval in the Lower Engadine town of Scuol. The next morning, after leaving my luggage at the train station, I walk a few yards to a gondola that takes me to high meadows. The chime of church bells drifts up from the valley floor, a deer bounds down the mountainside ahead with enviable sure-footedness, tiny lavender butterflies flit about my feet.

Eventually my path winds into pine forests, where the sounds change to the babble of water tumbling from the mountaintop, twittering birds and occasionally, to my delight, the unmistakable call of the cuckoo. Emerging from the forest to rugged slopes, I encounter a large flock of sheep, who eye me balefully and part like the Red Sea as I pass. My picnic lunch of bread, cheese and fresh apricots is eaten on a spot overlooking a small farm and rushing river.

And so it goes, as I sing "valderi, valdera" along rivers and streams, across fields and through woods. I encounter other hikers, but not many and most (I blush to admit) speed past me. It is late afternoon when I reach Guarda and the Hotel Meisser, three 17th-century farmhouses joined to create one gracious hotel, run by the fourth and fifth generations of its founding family.

Idyllic Guarda, which sits at more than 5,000 feet above sea level, consists of narrow streets lined with tall houses decorated with typical Engadine sgraffito, or painted plaster work. The antique village has several hotels and restaurants, some small shops and stopped-in-time tranquility. My room has a bed with sheets white as Alpine snow, into which I tumble gratefully and early.

After an al fresco mountain-view breakfast, I leave my luggage for the hotel to send on and wield my Swiss Pass to board a bus to the train station, then a train to Cinuous-chel-Brail. The day's hike starts with a stroll through a verdant farming valley before a long climb to Alp Griatshouls, above the timber line. I pause for a picnic overlooking the peaks of Switzerland's only national park in the company of a bevy of belled bossies who eye me serenely.

Though the remainder of the hike to Zuoz is downhill, I'm gassed by the time I reach town in late afternoon. Other tourists relax at outdoor cafes while I check into the friendly and lively Posthotel Engiadina. My room includes an enormous bathtub and at this point, given a choice between hobbling around charming cobblestone streets and poaching my aching muscles ... well, can you blame me? I run myself a deep bath and have a soak and a nap before dinner in the hotel's convivial restaurant.

On my last day, the rains come. Sometimes just a drizzle, sometimes a downpour, but I don rain jacket and pants and ride the train to Pontresina, where my hike begins. My directions assure me that this is one of the most pleasant hikes in the upper Engadine valley because it is "never strenuous." But farther down the page, they instruct me to "follow signs ... until you are above timberline."

For a heart that lives at sea level, a non-strenuous hike to above the timber line is an oxymoron, but I continue onwards and upwards. I get wet and exhausted and my little toe sobs, but when the clouds break to reveal long views of mountains, villages, and Lake Silvaplana, I am motivated anew. I stop for a cheering lunch of rosti at a mountaintop restaurant and then ... I run out of steam. Tired, soggy and hurting, I start seeking signs to public transportation, grateful for the Swiss Pass in my pack. I hike another couple of hours before finding the right bus, but I arrive in lovely Sils Maria in time to visit the Nietzsche House next door to the modern Hotel Edelweiss, where I am staying. Then, as the sun lowers, I idle on a bench and contemplate the lake, mountain and sunset scenery that gave the philosopher pause for thought.

I tuck the moment into my memory scrapbook, to mull when life back home gets stressful. For a time, I almost forget my now-purple pinkie toe. And like Nietzsche, I wax philosophical: No pain, no gain.

Do it yourself:

Switzerland has more than 30,000 miles of designated footpaths and more than 13,000 miles of train, bus and boat routes.

Ryder-Walker Alpine Adventures specializes in treks and inn-to-inn hikes throughout the Swiss, French and Italian Alps. Hikes are guided or independent. Self-guided hikes are approximately $150-$250 per day, depending on what level of accommodation and rail-transport options are included. For more information, call (970) 728-6481 or (888) 586-8365, or visit www.RyderWalker.com.

Other companies offering guided and independent hikes in Switzerland include:

Forum International Travel, 91 Gregory Lane, Suite #21, Pleasant Hill, California 4523; (800) 252-4475. www.foruminternational.com

GORPTravel, GORPtravel, 6707 Winchester Circle, Suite 101, Boulder, CO 80301. 877-440-GORP. www.gorptravel.com

For information about visiting Switzerland, contact Switzerland Tourism, 608 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10020; 1-877-Switzerland. www.myswitzerland.com .