A trip that pairs partially sighted people with fully sighted guides offers reassurance while expanding the possibilities of travel, as our writer discovered in Austria and Germany

Swimming through the cool clear lake, I’m aware of the densely forested mountains behind us, with pale rocky peaks to our right. A cable car snakes up the side of one, and the sky is turning grey, hinting at an Alpine storm. A standup paddleboarder with blond hair who is wearing bright Hawaiian shorts glides past, and the distant shore that we’re heading towards is clustered with cheery red parasols.

I can’t really see much of this. I can see the silhouette of the mountains cradling us, the figure of the paddleboarder but not his twist of blond hair, and the cable car would otherwise be a mystery to me. But as I swim alongside a fellow traveller, Sophia, she describes the scene around us in such detail that it fills in the blanks and paints a rich picture for me as a visually impaired person.