The Slow Life in the Alps

The best part about being here in the Alps....is just being here... Our plans are settled through the end of October, and just now we have no trains to catch, no packs to pack, no hotels to check in & out from, and no new languages to tackle. (Just the same old ones that we still don't know.) During this two weeks we will just sit, and will move only when we feel like it! So what do we do? Very little, truthfully, but here's a selection of our favorite activities:
Admire the view from our chalet on an amazingly clear day...
Write on the blog, and check/write email...Watch the ponies grazing near by...
Take another mountain bike ride...

Here Case has arrived a few hundred feet below the highest gondola station. No...we didn't take the gondola to get up here, but we did push our bikes up a lot of steep, rocky trails. And given our conditioning and the altitude (7000 ft), we took a lot of breaks to enjoy the scenery!

Hours of plodding to get up here, saved from boredom only by the spectacular views, dainty wildflowers, and close encounters of the cow kind....

.....

.... and only 45 hair-raising minutes to make it back down to town & home, saved from disaster only by a very judicious use of brakes and the good sense to walk down the steepest, bumpiest stretches.