It’s the cows’ shed. They sauntered out underneath our dorm of 16 beds – and only us. As they moved out from being milked they paused below our window, not to welcome us, but to have their head cleaned or scratched with one of those car wash type rotators. Then the milker began washing them before they entered their day long dining room to refuel yet again.
On our floor just down the tool shed hallway and left into the hay loading dining room was the engine room. From here the tractor moved great loads of hay down to the cows, to keep them quiet?, and dropped a few small pieces, probably for us. The cows returned from breakfast so quietly (I only knew because I was finding the shed beds a bit hard and thought it would be more relaxing looking at the cows down below).
From my shed I could also see the two very fancy trailers that had the straw beds; we should have taken that option because when we left the tenants had still not appeared.
Downstairs to our breakfast which adjoined the cows’ dining room (I know this because our chef came through the door leading to their eating room). No tractor however was needed for our breakfast as we were only two.
We left early because we had a 2-hour hill to climb – mostly through a very dark tall tree forest. This helped us take our mind off the slope as we paused at the ubiquitous red benches and looked back at our recent achievements. Then it was a long and more gently sloping terrain that took us through sumptuous daisy decorated fields. These yellow spotted fields swept down to a beautiful lake with a snowy mountain backdrop; across to a very busy and noisy rocky river; surrounded immaculate farm houses; and graced our windy narrow road and tiny trails.
We stopped for lunch in Einsiedeln, a gorgeous town with a spectacular monastery. Inside the church I thought for a moment I was in the Sistine chapel. Extraordinary frescoes filled the walls and ceilings – a sight not only for the religious but for art lovers too. But not time enough to be too thorough, it was time for our last lap.
A perfect day for us to walk as we enjoy a cool edge to the weather and having coolness in the shadows also provides an incentive to leave our rest spots or we might not. Late in the day with Corrie leaving me well behind (when she senses the finishing line she’s unstoppable), there were a few drops. With some thunder and lightning I didn’t think anyone could catch her.
Finally through a small valley opening into a tiny village we found our delightful little B&B that the last towns’ energetic information officers had organised for us. The owner would not be there so the key was under a white pot next to a white flower and two white shells, and the name of our room was Stefan.
Stefan was big but light and quite roomy; unlike our farmer he had towels for us – wow. Stefan’s window also showed us a huge rock-like mountain that we can nearly touch – we might tomorrow.
