A Day in the Alps

We have been enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Heinz and Annalies Stupler. They live is a very nice and roomy condo outside Zurich. They have a sun room and garden in the back, which is a great place to have supper and sit in the evenings. Heinz has a green thumb and has turned this urban yard into a beautiful and productive garden with many fruit trees, some of which grow up the walls.

Annalies took us for a day in the alps. We began driving along the valley floor, past the town where she grew up on the shores of Waldensee, which is long and very deep.

This is a typical Swiss church. They all look similar to this, with different collors of the clock faces.
Here we begin to go up the mountain switch-backs, leaving the valley floor.
Notice that all that separates us from the edge is cattle-wire.
It seemed like the perfect valley, surrounded on both sides by steep mountains and smooth and grassy in the middle.
This is the Strupler's little get-away place, called "The Hideout." It is a trailer enclosed in a wooden structure that makes it not only winter-proof, but larger. Really nice and cozy!
We took these gondolas up to the top of the mountains, and the view was breathtaking!

Here I am standing on some of the remaining snow pack. The weather was warm and sunny and I got a sunburn!
We had a very tasty salad lunch at this mountain top restaurant.

Amazing views wherever you look! There is a dairy farm down there in the center of the picture, and cows with bells all over the mountain sides. The make cheeses on their farms up there.

We had a great time watching the para-gliders launching them selves into space right there on the mountain side. Here you can see how the just sort of walk off the side and take off!
Ed really wanted to do this! We asked, but the man at the top did have the equipment for a tandem flight. Too bad! Guess we'll have to come back again!
After leaving the mountain, they float around over a mile high over the valley. the air currents are so good that you can stay up, rising and drifting down for over an hour.
Heinz learned to do it, but said it got pretty lonely up there after a while! :-)