Practise cams and nuts on crystalline rock first — granite, gneiss, porphyry cam more honestly than smooth limestone. Why is under Rock types. Then Plaisir tours, then more serious.
Baden-Baden
Practice
Battert
Good in the easy grades for practising cams and nuts — close, readable, forgiving if a piece doesn’t sit.
Murgtal
Practice
Gernsbach — Ergenfelsen
A hidden crag with two cracks. Practise cams on crystalline rock (gneiss, granite, porphyry) — it cams more honestly than smooth limestone.
Northern Black Forest
Practice
Brettfels
Pumprisse — classic crack ground for placing and climbing.
Schwäbische Alb
Tour
Donautal
Limestone, often sport or mixed. Good day trips when the high mountains don’t play along.
Alte Hausener Wand
Eigerturm
Schaufels
Schreyfels (Opakante)
Switzerland
Bad-weather plan B
Swiss Jura
A fair-weather magnet — when the Alps are in cloud or storm, the Jura is often still dry and climbable.
Appenzell
Tour
Alpstein
A compact range with short approaches and lots of rock. A good next step after Plaisir starter tours.
Montafon / Rätikon
Tour
Rätikon
Limestone, long walls, classic alpine routes. More serious than the Jura or Donautal — take weather windows and rappels seriously.
Saulakopf
Zimba
Sulzfluh
Uri / Wallis
Tour
Furkapass
Granite at pass height — short approaches, cam terrain, often used as a trad and multi-pitch playground.
Topo & guidebooks
What you take
Plaisir selected guidebook (Panico)
The classic for well-protected pleasure multi-pitch in the Alps. First filter: protection and approach, not the crux grade.
Read the first-ascent year
From about 1980 a line is usually “modern” (bolts, clearer line). Older than about 1950: often the big features, where you could protect then — the line can wander.