Today is a cabin day – Sigis has an appointment he could not change, so Gaby is coming to collect us in the morning and we will make our way to Feldis to hike to their cabin to spend the day.  We begin at a café at the train station with a wonderfully cute cappuccino, then hop on the train to Feldis. 

As we are heading to the cable car, Ed realizes he has misplaced his hat. Bummer.  Figuring we will never find one in Feldis, it is a small holiday village after all, we get extremely lucky and find a hat to purchase at the cable car station.  Score.  And a local Feldis hat to boot. We are all set now.

And then we are off onto the cable car.  Yikes, that cable car!  It will never cease to amaze – and sort of frighten us!  It is a gorgeous ride, but it is also so, well, high on cables!

Successfully completing our journey, we exit the cable car to find some adorable local children selling homemade rolls with the Swiss flag on them. How can we resist (thank you Gaby, as we have no Swiss Francs!!).  The rolls are as adorable as the kids, and we happily munch on them as we walk through the village. 

And then we are out of the village proper and hiking through the mountains toward the cabin.  Always an incredibly gorgeous trek – the fields, the cottages, the snow capped Alps.  Just fabulous.

As we near the cabin, we take a detour through the forest with even more lovely vistas, framed by tall pine trees.

Then we are back out onto the open fields, following the gravel track through farmland and up over little ridges to the cabin, where Sigis has already arrived and is there to greet us.  Fantastic 2 hour hike through the mountains!

Our reward?  The entire rest of the afternoon at leisure on the deck of the cabin, overlooking the sparkling blue pool and the Alps.  Snacks, conversation, a trombone concerto, dips in the pool (Sigis and Gaby, coz you know we don’t do pools!).  An excellent dinner on the grill.  Just a fabulous, relaxing afternoon with lots of talk and jokes and good company and fun.

Later, back at Stiva Calanda, we wander out into the lovely back garden for an evening aperftif, before retiring for the night in the fortunately (and surprisingly) cool apartment (the air “circulator,” i.e., fan, helped immensely).