We'll split the fondue and she'll have the....um...cowpies.

We spent a number of days in the Swiss Alps recently, in a little town named Leysin. It is a very popular skiing area in winter, but full of gorgeous mountain hikes and not so full of tourists in summer. It lies at about 1600 m. above sea level, and some of the hikes took us closer to 2000 m.

It was really lovely. The town isn't so small that you need to eat in the same 2 restaurants over and over, but not so big as to feel commercial. Our B&B room gave us a view not only of mountains but of a glacier, and a 10 min. walk into town.

Let's just say we spent a lot of time walking.

The dog, of course, loved it. I can't even estimate how many grasshoppers perished in her wake, but to see her bouncing (literally, as if she was a lamb, or in the water) around the long, grassy fields was pretty magical. It became clear very quickly that she was just bouncing for fun. She would make these large loops, around us, off leash....boing, boing, boing.

There was one downside. Regarding the dog. These luxurious fields of long grasses were sometimes shared by Swiss cows, in their summer pastures (happy happy cows!), with their bells on, making cowpies. And apparently, this is a doggie delicacy. Or at least for our dog it is. So every once in a while, boing boing boing would turn into burrow nose, and eat. Yuck.

The fondue, with cheese, and bread and apples/pears, however, was quite nice. And those french swiss know how to make some really nice pastries.

One last thing which stood out for us in contrast to some hikes we were used to doing in Arizona was that there were a number of trails which, after 1-3 hours, led to a restaurant. A nice one. With full meals, beer, wine, coffee, desserts. What a great way to break up the hiking and hide out a bit from the really strong sunlight.


















The dog didn't seem to mind the bread snacks which took the place of her cookies when those ran out, either. Although, for getting enough cold water on the trip, she had some ideas which differed slightly from ours. We were of the water bottle and doggie dish camp. She, while happily drinking that, was of the dog-in-cow-trough camp. Sorry about that, cows.

One of my favorite scenes of the whole vacation was one I decided not to take a photo of. There was a field on the way from our B&B to town which we passed most days, and one rainy evening there were two large, black, long-haired creatures in there. My best guess is yaks. They looked like VW sized guinea pigs with the long hair down to their toes. One male, one female, standing side by side, up the hill. And the female was just slowly, calmly licking (grooming maybe?) the chin of the male, who watched us walk past. It was such a sweet scene somehow. So yes, the yaks were my favorite.