Heidi: From Maienfeld to Frankfurt

The story begins with a backstory told on a path: Heidi's aunt Dete had gone to the Baths at Ragatz and taken service in the large hotel there as a chambermaid. From Ragatz she brings five-year-old Heidi towards the mountain, catching a hay-cart lift as far as Maienfeld. Ragaz is also where the author worked: around 1880 Johanna Spyri penned the story of Heidi there. Today the town is called Bad Ragaz.

Location precision: The novel names the Baths and a large hotel, not a specific building; the pin marks the town.

"From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains." So the novel opens, and so Heidi's walk starts. The village is where the book is largely set, and it is now the centre of what the tourist trade calls Heidiland, popular especially with Japanese and Korean visitors.

Location precision: The novel describes the village and its footpath without naming a street; the pin marks Maienfeld.

Halfway up the mountain the two reach the hamlet of Dörfli, and above it Heidi is left with her grandfather, who is called the Alm-Uncle because he lives in seclusion on the alm. She is not more than five years old. What she loves most is the waving and roaring of the three old fir trees on windy days. Above the hut rises the Falknis, one of only two mountains Spyri names in the novel.

Location precision: The alm hut is an invented place; the pin marks the Heidialp above Maienfeld, a stand-in.

Dete returns to take Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion to the wealthy invalid girl Klara Sesemann. The house is "the big house where there is a gold dog's head on the door, with a ring in its mouth". Heidi's homesickness leads to sleepwalking, which the household first takes for ghosts: a servant sees a white figure standing at the top of the steps.

Location precision: The house is invented and the novel gives no street; the pin marks Frankfurt am Main only.

In the middle of October Heidi and her grandfather move into the old house in Dörfli so she can go to school. Above Maienfeld, a theme park called Heididorf presents itself as the original setting. It has a Heidihaus, where Heidi and her grandfather are said to have spent the winter, Heidi's alpine hut and a museum, Johanna Spyris Heidiwelt. It was formerly called Oberrofels.

Location precision: The novel's Dörfli is not identified with a real village; Heididorf is the tourist tradition.

Visitor guidance: Heididorf is a visitor attraction with the Heidihaus, a hut and a museum.

The family doctor visits Heidi and recommends that Klara come up too. The next summer Klara does, and she grows stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air. Peter, jealous of the two girls' friendship, pushes her empty wheelchair down the mountain. Without it Klara has no choice but to learn to walk, and gradually she does; her grandmother and father are overcome with joy to see it.

Location precision: Klara's summer happens at the invented alm hut; the pin repeats the Heidialp stand-in above Maienfeld.