Yesterday we left in the morning to go to Switzerland, we headed for Arosa in Graubünden. Our plans were to go to the Bärenland, a rescue station for brown bears. The last 45 minutes of our drive were so beautiful but also adventurous. We couldn’t go fast because of the narrow streets and the constant switchbacks, which felt like they would never end.
But the whole trip there was totally worth it cause we arrived at a beautiful lake. We parked by the train station and took the gondola up the mountain. We were pretty hungry so we decided to first have some lunch at the restaurant. After that we went to the visitor platform to look at one of the bears (there was only one outside, the rest was sleeping)
We decided to not take the gondola back down but instead to walk down the mountain. It is a perfect hike for smaller children. You have several options. Either you walk a loop trail to to next little village called Meran (they have an awesome cheese shop and café there) or you can go straight to the squirrel path, were you can see lots of squirrels running around. That’s what we did and as soon as we got back to our car we drove to the Sennerei Meran to get some coffee, ice cream and to buy local cheese there.
For the night we planned on staying with Mike’s brother Joe and his wife Michelle in Chur. We are so grateful that we are able to stay with them for our time in Switzerland.
This morning we went to the Viamala gorge. We were glad that we decided to go there early in the morning, because when we were done busloads full of people came to walk through the gorge… Nate and Noam had the chance to do a treasure hunt through the gorge. They got a bag with a looking glas, a metal disc and a treasure map. They had to find clues and had to decipher them in order to find the code word. At the end they got a crystal (the treasure) in the shop as a reward.
After this very exciting treasure hunt we also went on a 2.3 mile hike through the gorge. The beginning of the hike was pretty hard. The path was very narrow and steep. But our two mountain goats 🙂 couldn’t care less. On top of the mountain we took a little break to have some lunch. It was so pretty. All around us were beautiful butterflies. All in all it was a super nice hike through the woods, with lots of water and bridges to cross.
Back at the car we decided to go to the Heidsee, which was a 30 minute drive. We knew we didn’t have that much time left cause of the weather forecast. So we spent the rest of the sunny afternoon at the lake which is perfect for little children. The only downside was that the water was ice cold, which meant Mike and I only put our feet in for a few minutes. The kids wore their wetsuits, so they felt a lot more comfortable in the water. After spending some time in the water and eating ice cream, we left again which was a good choice because a soon as we arrived in Chur it started to rain.
