I thought that it would be a good idea to share a bit of a history with you. Just like when you visit your grandparents and they always have all the interesting stories to tell…but this time, let’s talk about Detective-Trails.
Our Detective-Trails were launched in 2016 as a test in Switzerland. The idea for them was to complement MyCityHighlight’s interactive travel guide and be available in all the cities where our app/website guide was available. Already in the first year, the tourism organization from Solothurn – which interestingly was not one of the MyCityHighlight cities – a beautiful Baroque town with the number of inhabitants under 17 000, showed interest in having our Detective-Trail. Why? To attract more tourists and locals interactively, at any time of the day, without a need for registrations or tickets purchase. We were very happy to deliver this trail and see what happens. After Solothurn, more cities and tourism organizations followed. To be more specific, over 40 Detective-Trails have been designed in Switzerland after contacting us with a need for one.
beautiful Solothurn, photo credit: Artiom Vallat
But let’s go back to the Detective-Trail Solothurn. If we count today, more than 5000 people have visited Solothurn just by making the Detective-Trail. All of them got to know the most beautiful Baroque city in Switzerland – Solothurn. Detective-Trail became the tool to use if you really want to know something exciting about this place. Participants of this treasure hunt get to know about two saint’s patrons of the city, Urs and Viktor. Both of them got cruelly beheaded by the Romans. The reason for that was that they simply did not want to sacrifice to the Roman gods. The legend says, that the Romans threw their heads into the river Aare, but Urs and Viktor, themselves had taken their heads out from the water and carried them on public roads to those places where today you will find St. Ursen Cathedral, the most iconic highlight of the city. That place used to be a secret spot for Christians to meet. Quite spooky, but that’s just one of many stories that you will read about during this Detective-Trail. I’ll give you another sneak peek. Participants of the Solothurn trail have also learned about the so-called “Butt-Stone”, which simply presents a butt stretched in the direction of the reformed Berne…city that was not a good friend of the Catholic Solothurn, during that time in the past. Participants of this trail also learn why number 11 plays such an important role in Solothurn, which is actually often called 11-city because the number 11 occurs again and again and again… in Solothurn.
“Butt-Stone”
The big advantage of the Detective-Trails, compared to guided tours, lies in the interactive design and the possibility to do the tour itself spontaneously and at any time. You can do it solo or in a group of friends. You can use a mobile version or a printed one, but I’m not gonna keep you here longer. If you would like to find out more about our Detective-Trails you can read about it here.
All of us at MyCityHighligth, we are very proud of this partnership and even though our city guides are not there anymore, Detective-Trails still remain big part of our focus and when we are looking back to the past, we are so satisfied with the decision to create the Detective-Trail in the city of Solothurn, which became the cornerstone for others trails requested by cities and tourism offices. We are happy to be able to present Solothurn to many visitors with the help of our product.
Where to find this Detective-Trail? In Detective-Trails app or on our website just here. Solothurn Detective-Trail is unfortunately only available in German, but on that website you will find our English language trails as well.
