Wandern: Stoos

We had an amazing ridge hike today from Stoos to Fronalpstock. To get to Stoos we rode the world's steepest funicular. Then took two chairlifts up to the peak, where we hiked to a lift down. That lift, however, wasn't open yet for sommer wandern, so instead of riding down, we had to bushwhack our way down the mountain and back to the town of Stoos. That gave us the opportunity to collect lots of wildflowers though!

Cookout on Zuriberg

Wandern: Kronberg

We got back into our weekend wandern thing with our first real Swiss hike of the season at Kronberg, in the Appenzell region. Lots of wildflowers and only a bit of snow along the trail....

Wandern time--back into the alps we go!

Irisgarten in full bloom

Asparagus time!

Hiking in the Cinque Terre, Italy

We had an amazing time hiking from one Cinque Terre town to the next, through vineyards and olive groves, past lemon trees and into the colorful towns themselves. We also hiked from our cottage over a great ridge to a small rocky beach on the sea at Monesteroli. This may be the most memorable hike we've ever been on--a great majority of it involved walking down (and up) over 2000 extremely steep stone steps to reach sea level.