A Shortened Version of Our Finale in Switzerland.

It seems that Rick and I have been traveling on the dead run for the past three and a half months! Two days after we returned from this almost six week adventure, I joined him in Southern Utah for the Senior Games (a 20 year tradition for us) Two days later we drove to Las Vegas (which was only two hours away) to catch a plane to Los Angeles and then another one to Japan.

Sadly,on this blog I am only two days into our seven dazzling days together for our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe with MFME! And  every day was packed to the gills with new things to learn, new places to see and bonding moments to experience.

After reading the comprehensive posts about each day on some of the girls’ blogs, I’ve decided to post just a few pictures from my little phone that aren’t already posted, for the remaining days!  Since all these posts are permanently on the Internet, I will post a link to those posts at the end of each of my abbreviated posts if you are interested in seeing more from the people who have awesome cameras and saw things that I missed! Those who have been following along are probably tired of this trip (sorry) but I am so happy to have such a lovely variety of observations and amazing shots from our professional photographers to hold these precious days in our memories forever! 

SO HERE WE GO TO THE MAGICAL Engadin Valley:

Our sweet swing through Switzerland was smashed with gorgeous valley vistas and breathtaking snow capped mountains:

stunning lakes:

…… a short hike into the Julier Pass where Hannibal just may have led his elephants across the Alps in the dim historical past! 

Aja, found this cart in several pieces and in Aja-style put it back together and theatrically re-enacted what it must have been like to roll a cart like that over rocks like this!

….to Morteratsch and the fascinating world of making cheese from those well-loved and beautiful cows and goats of Switzerland!

….and the yummiest cheese and meat tray imaginable anywhere in the world! YUM!

From there we drove to the base of the Alps where a large tram took us to see what the gorgeous alps look like at the end of summer. Breathtaking!

Dean, bundled up like a bunny, liked it too!

We ended our Cheese Extravaganza that day with dinner in this sweet gondola, exactly the same as the one we rode in on our journey to the top of the mountains that afternoon! Arranged for us by Anita, of course!

The menu consisted of our choice of gourmet fondue or raclette cheese with all the trimmings (one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world)! We had some of each! It was delicious!!!

This is a “Raclette Cheese Melter” (probably not the proper name)….a wonderful Swiss food tradition! You can’t beat delicious melted cheese poured over boiled potatoes and pickled onions!

And of course, the fondue pot which we are all now familiar with. YUM!

Our last night in Switzerland was an Airbnb “to die for”!  It think everyone would agree that it was our favorite place to sleep!! It was the 4th floor of a building which had been first constructed in 1661!

See those little windows across the top? That was our airbnb digs in the delightful village of Zuoz! 

We thought we’d seen the most charming village in Switzerland as we wandered through the streets of that gorgeous village the next morning….until we put the address of a “cow and sheep bell-maker” which had been given to us by the cheese maker the day before by the cheese-maker, into the GPS and set out to find it.

Shawni and I reeeeeally wanted one of those hand-made bells to take home so our little rental cars wound our way up a steep mountain that looked as though we were going to Heidi’s grandfather’s cottage at the top of the steep slopes of a verdant green mountainside. At last,we came to the bell-maker’s cottage in Guarda!

It was not only the home of the bell-maker but the location of Switzerland’s most famous children’s story called A Bell for Ursli! It was so fun to be right there where the story began! Our bell-maker had an exact replica of Ursli’s bell and I just happened to find the very door of Ursli’s house as I wandered around the streets of the village> I didn’t realize how famous that door until I read the book to Zara this week in NYC.  (Julie found one in English on Amazon). 

 

Above is the bell-maker’s House at the top of the stairs. We were so excited to find it!

As it turned out, he only had a couple of bells for sale that were too big to fit in our suitcases but he allowed Shawni to buy the second one from the right from his collection. She promptly gave it to me as a reminder of our ancestors’ homeland and of this delightful trip! I LOVE it!

Again, to see more pictures of the beautifully quaint village of Zuoz as well as the adorable little village of Gaurda and our fun finale in Switzerland on Shawni’s blog, click HERE.

From there it was GOODBYE, to our beloved SWITZERLAND and HELLO TO GERMANY!