This weekend we headed to Flims, a small town surrounded by panoramic Alpine views that are snowy in the winter and cowy in the summer (can you believe spell-check doesn’t like the word “cowy”?).
There is nothing like a trip to the Romansch-speaking part of the country to suddenly make Swiss German sound familiar and understandable. Luckily the locals pretty much all also speak High German, so we were able to get around without a problem. We mostly spent our time there hiking, swimming, and eating/drinking/watching soccer.
Several of the area’s ski lifts are open in the summer to move hikers and mountain bikers to the higher-altitude trails. The areas that serve as ski slopes in the winter double as wildflower-covered cow pastures in the summer. It was amusing to see (and hear) cow bells actually tied around cows necks for once, rather than hanging in cheesy Swiss souvenir shops.
For swimming, there was a gorgeous clear blue-green lake to which one could either hike down or take a small free funicular (which looked more like an outdoor elevator). The water felt as good as it looked, especially after a long day of hiking.
Happy anniversary!