Day 13: Valais and the Swiss Alps

September 6th, 2015

As our trip wound down, we were all excited to spend the last day driving through Switzerland, making a round-about way back to Milano for our departure.  We started the day by visiting a funicular and mountain railway at the Lac Emosson, which is a really high alpine lake with a dam to produce electricity.  The funicular and railway originally serviced the construction and maintenance of the dam, but now it is an awesome place to visit!

They claimed it was the steepest funicular in the world (Google says a few places make that claim), but either way, it was really steep and really fun just chugging up that mountainside.

Switzerland!  Land of Adam's heritage.  So even though he doesn't really have any Swiss connection now, there was still a bit of pride in being in the place where his ancestors came from.

How could anyone not love a gently-cruising open-air mountainside train?!  We all loved it!

Our budding photographer.

The last leg of the trip to the top was the mini-funicular, which is exactly what it sounds like, and even more fun!

Lac Emission.  Gorgeous!

Mont Blanc in the background made for great picture opportunities!

Cruising back down in the mini.

Random awesome alpine playground.

After hours on the road that day, and weeks traveling before that, we were all a little tired, especially Adam, who was acting as the driver, navigator, and vacation planner.  But our unplanned cruise through Switzerland had some pleasant surprises, including the baroque-style Stockalper Castle, which was built as a private palace in the 1600s, but now is a beautiful and relaxing place to walk through with your family at the end of a long and exciting vacation.

Yep.  Eating gelato, even in Switzerland.  (Didn't realize that Switzerland merchants prefer Francs over Euros...  Learn something new every hour when you're traveling in a foreign country!)