Nelle montagne svizzere
A trip planned for over a year which, due to lots of cars breaking down, could only last five days, this holiday in the heart of the southern Alps was thoroughly enjoyable. We, six youngsters, stayed in a cottage, property of one of our families, above the Val Calanca in the canton of Grigioni (Graubünden), in Italian-speaking Switzerland. There were mountains. There was an abundance of blue sky. There were woods. And there were goats.
Of course, everything was done on foot. The car was parked in the valley below, the only way up to the cottage being a steep mountain path. Since five of us didn't really like the idea of climbing up onto the mountaintop, we mostly staid in the vicinity of the cottage. There was, however, a beautiful waterfall about a quarter hour's walk away, a pleasant spot we visited a couple of times to swim and be generally lazy.
Actually, the cottage was quite luxurious. We had running water, which, as I understand it, was a tap mounted onto a pipe built by the Swiss army and connected to a mountain spring. We had electric light, the power for which was supplied by solar panels. We even had a shower, outside, with a curtain. But the most important luxury of all was, of course, the fireplace.
We even rejoined civilization for a day and went to Melide in the neighbouring canton of Ticino (Tessin) to enjoy SwissMiniatur and the unbelievably warm Lago di Lugano.
Now that was a nice week. But, with all that mountain-climbing, bloody exhausting.