Santis

The weather had cleared by the morning and it was a beautiful sunny day. Off into the mountain. We took a gondola up to about 1300 meters altitude, Kronberg, where the views were already amazing. Then on to a beautiful walk along the hills, on rocky hillsides and through cow farms. There’s myriads of flowers: white, blue, yellow, purple... ( but nothing compares to these blue and yellow, purple pills hills). There’s the sound of cowbells all around and of course there’s the beautiful scenery. The walk took us through a forest at one point, and even though it was pine trees, it felt like a rainforest. We made it to the next station after a couple hours, where we ate a sausage and drank apple juice (clearly in the german part of Switzerland). Then we took the gondola up to Santis, the highest point on the mountain range. That's the mountains you can see in this photo. Absolutely awesome 360 views up there. I’m used to seeing these views full of snowy mountains when I go skiing, so it’s really cool to see them when the mountains are mostly devoid of snow! We chilled up there for a while, before taking the gondola back down, and then a bus to the town of Urnasch. Then, the little red train back to where we parked the car. In the evening we ate some fondue (we’re in cheese country, who cares if its summer) and had a walk around the town of Appenzell, with all its traditional houses.
The night saw us running for cover inside our tent at 7pm, when a massive storm came out of nowhere. Thunder and lightning, as the night before, but also incredible winds, which were squashing the tent down on us! Then at one point, I poke my head outside and it hurts a lot more than rain in your face. It was hail! In the middle of August! A lot of it as well. This summer has been absolutely full of the strangest weather!!

peace