Summer in the Swiss Alps

It is truly this gorgeous here.

After a week in Southern Italy, we are now in the French speaking part of the Swiss Alps in a ski resort town called Crans-Montana.  C'est magnifique.  Life here is quiet and slow-paced.  People come in the summer to enjoy the trees, clean air, and 60-70 degree temps in addition to the lakes, golf courses, and children's summer camps.  I love it.  Jared says it reminds him of Maine.  But, a very expensive Maine.  In fact, we were eating better pizza in Italy (as expected) and paying $4 a pizza compared to $28 here.  I'm totally not kidding.

My friend, Nathalie, and her 7-year-old son, who live in Austin, introduced us to this town, where her parents have an apartment.  They've been summering here for several years and the kids are in this great day-camp together.  Peanut and Rocky spend all day outside - riding bikes or scooters, putting around on paddle boats, fishing, rock climbing, and archery.  Today, Peanut is on an all day glacier hike!  The mountain guides even showed them how pick and eat "fraise de bois" (wild strawberries).  This city girl had to ask, "are you sure they were edible?  Did the others eat the strawberries too?"

Peanut met some boys from Atlanta, Georgia whose mom is half French/half Swiss and who come to Crans-Montana every Christmas and summer to see their grandparents.  The boys are fully bilingual (French and English).  Their mom, Isabella, is very nice and outgoing, so hopefully we'll keep in touch and see each other when they come through Paris every summer before heading to the Swiss mountains.  Our kids are speaking French and English everyday here and do it very naturally.  The Atlanta mom said that she thought Peanut and Rocky were French kids from Paris.  Hearing their French, she didn't know they were American.  To me, that is a huge compliment.

While the kids are enjoying camp, Jared and I take long walks, talk without getting interrupted, and breathe a lot of clean air (because we are huffing and puffing up some serious inclines at high altitude).  I think of it as cleansing our lungs of the city pollution.

Down the mountain is an old school amusement park for the below 10 year old crowd cleverly named HappyLand.  With the snow-capped Swiss Alps as a backdrop and Rhone River streaming by, it's the perfect distraction to pass the day.  The best part is, it's small enough where the kids can go off on their own and parents can sit under a shaded tree and chat.