The last days of Mom and Dad’s visit.

I’m squishing all the rest of the days with Mom and Dad into this one post, so hold on to your hats for this whirlwind tour.
First, I wanted to go to one place (called Piotta Ritom), but it ended up taking a lot longer to drive than google told us, and when we got to the very top of Susten Pass we found that the final bit of the pass was still closed for winter.  WHAT?! Ruff.   So, we got out at the top and walked around in the snow.

We had jackets, but not very warm jackets, and it was pretty chilly.  Doable when the sun was out, and it peeked out every little while.
 
Dad.

Mom.

Glacier.
 
Swiss family Bell.
 
Throughout all our travels the kids took turns riding with Grandpa and Grandma.  What a headache.  By the end of all the squabbling and crying every time we got in the cars, I wished we had said that we all drive in the van.  Oh well.  The kids had fun talking on the walkie-talkies.

We drove back down the pass to Meiringen where we took a little cable car up to the Reichenbach Falls. 

So picturesque.



So, these falls are famous because it is where Sherlock Holmes died.  See the little white star (actually you can’t even tell it’s a star in this picture- but I circled it so you can see where it is)? 
 

So here is Jethro being Sherlock.

We only bought tickets UP on the cable car, so we could hike down.  Which was fine, except it started raining a little when we got up to the top (we had to go up before we started going down again), and it was making the rocks slippery, so we were in a rush to get down, for fear it would open up and start pouring on us.    Which is too bad, because the trail was really quite neat—it went down by some chateau’s, past their fruit trees, through the fields, then it would cross a road and go down through more fields.  I thought it was so so cool.  If we hadn’t been moving along fairly quickly I would have taken more pictures because it was a really beautiful little trail - different than most.  p.s. we never got poured on.

So.  Fast forward to the next day.  We drove down to the French part of Switzerland (which looks SURPISINGLY different than the German part—the houses and city have a completely different look) to go to the Chillon Castle, on Lake Geneva.  It was a bit rainy and overcast, so I’m taking this opportunity to post some of the internet’s pictures of the Castle, because it is lovely.



 
And here is my little family in front of it.



I really wanted to buy this wooden sword and shield for Talmage.  You can see how much he loved them.
 
Can you see Jethro and Grandma?

Cutest boy in the UNIVERSE.
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And then, all too soon, it was time for Grandma and Grandpa to go home.  When we told Talmage it was time to say goodbye, he started to cry.  You can see why—no one’s more fun than Grandpa and Grandma! 

The day before they left, there was a huge, complete, wonderful rainbow.  (My camera couldn’t even get the whole thing from end to end.)  My dad said something like he’d never seen such a big, perfect rainbow.  And I said, “Of course- it’s a Swiss rainbow.”  It was a bit of a joke by that time.  Everything’s better in Switzerland, you know.  :)
 
Fun fun fun times.  I wish they were coming back next month!!!!!!!