Further afield

One of the great benefits of being in the mountains is that friends are keen to visit and August was very busy in that regard. First up were the Fergusons from Chicago who have never been to Lake Como (one of our favourite places), so we set off by car to show them the sights. The drive had some spectacular scenery albeit with some cloud but the weather on arrival was perfect and we spent 2 most enjoyable nights there, mission accomplished.

There was also time to visit some of the prettiest villages like Grimentz and Vercorin, the quintessential chocolate box locations generously decorated with traditional flower boxes.

It was great to have so many friends over the summer but even more fun to spend time with both of our daughters. We see them regularly but not necessarily together so these occasions are special.

 Ashley and Astra at Champex Lac:

The rest of the summer flew by and before we knew it we were in mid September, time for a little excursion to Venice en route to Pula in Croatia for a concert. Pink Floyd has long been one of my favourite bands but I've never had the chance to see them. In this case it was David Gilmour on the Rattle That Lock Tour, sublime guitar in the Pula Arena.
A typical Venetian scene.

The arena:

In the midst of all of this we invested in a new property in Switzerland which has a restaurant.
More on that later.

Swiss summer

The Swiss Alps are majestic in winter but we have never spent much time there in summer so we were looking forward to returning to the chalet to finish the decorating and landscaping and to really explore the Valais region.
There are many different walks and hikes with a wide range of difficulty and we started on a mission to walk all of the bisses (at least 50) over the next few years. A bisse is simply a man made waterway, most of which were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to supply the fields and animals in the alpage during the summer months which can be very dry. Some of them are just simple ditches dug by hand but others are amazing feats of engineering which literally traverse the cliffs as seen here:

For more challenging walks we drive further up into the numerous valleys most of which have a lake,
like Kandersteg which is over the mountains in the Bernese Oberland.

One of the prettiest walks is on the Bisse de Trient near the French Border with magnificent views of the glacier at the end.

There is no shortage of things to do in this area: hiking, cycling, golf and paragliding to name a few. In addition there are various music festivals in Montreux, Verbier, Sierre and Sion and then the more traditional events like the Alphorn festivals and (don't laugh) the cow fighting. This is a serious competition which lasts all summer culminating with 'La Reine' (the queen) being crowned. At first glance it appears nothing more than 2 cows locking horns but we are told that it takes intelligence and skill to win a fight and it is not necessarily the biggest cow that wins. Owners will pay large sums for a
well bred animal, betting is serious but most importantly it is a social occasion high in the mountains where the locals often camp for the weekend to watch the fighting, followed by a bar b q and copious amounts of wine.

Day 1 of the season- the cows get familiar with each other: