Swiss Alps

Very few places live up to the expectations you have when you visit them. All those images of Switzerland - winding mountain roads, cows with big brass bells around their necks, quaint chalets hanging precariously onto the edges of mountains – they are all real. They exist in every town and village you pass through and it is absolutely beautiful. Despite the surrounding beauty, however, the roads themselves can be SCARY! Once you are off the main routes, many of the roads, including the mountain passes, are single lanes or one and a half lanes wide and despite the sheer cliff edges, often don’t have guard rails (see first photo). At the top of the Furka Pass, we walked down to the Rhone glacier and went down inside a tunnel inside of the glacier- very “cool” (photo below). It is very different than being in the mountains in Canada. Where our mountains are largely inaccessible and teaming with wildlife, the mountains in Switzerland are completely settled. There are restaurants, hotels and houses on almost every mountain top and in every mountain valley.