URNERSEE AND ALTDORF

We took a few days for a vacation to an area that is new to us – the canton Uri – right in the middle of the country. We did some hiking and wandered around some pretty old towns. We took a long boat ride and a quick gondola ride.

We stayed in a town called Altdorf. Here’s the view from a little walk we took above the town. The valley leads eventually to the Gotthard Pass.

Bea found lots of little lizards.

The legend of William Tell comes from this region – here he is with his cross bow and his son.

And here’s my towering hero. Look how short the doors were in our hotel. We couldn’t figure it out. Everything else was normal sized in this old, creaky, but nice building.

Here’s the boat we road on lake Urner. Lucerne is at the other end of the chain of lakes.

I went a little nutty and took about a hundred photos of the big flag on the back of the boat. It was so pretty blowing in the wind. And then I stared at it a really long time and zoned out. Just like you get mesmerized when you stare at a camp-fire.

The swiss love to cut tunnels through their mountains.

We rode a little gondola into the high hills. There are tons of gondolas or cable cars in the area – some are just two person open afairs. Ours was meant to hold 15 people. Still, poor Brian did not like it! He ended up walking down instead of taking the gondola ride again.

Moo.

We hiked to a cool playground along a stream. The best part was this mini cable car. Here’s Bea turning the crank that made it go up into the woods and back again. You can see the big rock that got to go for a ride.

Back in the town of Altdorf. There was a folk music festival happening. It was the biggest concentration of accordions and lederhosen that I’ve ever experienced.