A view up the valley from where we were staying near Verbier.

The town had some newer chalets and some that had been refurbished, but it also had some old ones giving you a good view of what the town looked like in the past.

There is an old watermill on the edge of town that was used primarily for sawing logs.

Mitzi liked the mangy cat that visited us.

Ahsley loved exploring around the chalet.

Ian liked playing with the sword and shield he got at Burg Eltz.

8-4-10 Wednesday
Not much happened today. I think we were all tired from traveling the last couple of days. We went to Verbier and drove through the town and went and found a grocery store and bought some groceries, and that was about it. We are staying in a really cool chalet, although it is a bit small for our family. The couple who’s chalet we were staying in greeted us last night with an apricot tart, some gifts, and were super nice.

On to Switzerland

Heading onto Switzerland to our final place to stay. Going to stop in Bern on the way.

I went to the Frankfurt temple in the morning before we hit the road.

Brad has been great with Mitzi.

They moved the bears (the symbol of Bern) from a pit that we saw when Kindra and I went here about 10 years ago to a nice river-front pen.

Mitzi rode on the little piggie.

Bern has a beautiful bridge that looks over the river.

Everyone but me in front of the fountain with the bear and in front of the famous Bern clock-tower.

Kindra catching a drink in the fountain.

Ashley and Ian getting drinks.

Most of the fountains in Europe you could drink out of or fill your water bottles.

Brad helping Mitzi some more.

The famous Bern clock-tower.

Brad loved this Swiss Army Knife, but it probably wouldn't fit in his pocket.

And Megan loved this BMW motorcycle that was enclosed.

8-3-10 Tuesday
I went to the Frankfurt temple early in the morning, as I had selected the hotel to be close to the hotel, then it was on to Switzerland. We decided to stop in Bern which was about 1 ½ hours from our final destination in Sarreyer which is near Verbier. We went to the bear pits, and they had modernized them from when Kindra and I had got to see them about 11 years ago. They now were able to walk more freely on the hillside. The bears have been the symbol of Bern for centuries, and they’ve had bears there for a long time. We then walked across the river and up the main old street towards the famous clock tower. We watched the clock go off, which is a little anti-climactic, as not that much happens. A couple people dance around while a mechanical guy strikes a bell. They do have some really neat statues and fountains down the main old street that are pretty neat. Then we went to our destination. We met the people whose chalet we are staying at, and they were super nice. They had bought us a big chocolate bar, and some other souvenirs. They were so kind trying to make us feel at home. The problem is their chalet isn’t nearly as big as I thought it was going to be. We are doing a non-simultaneous home exchange, and they want to come to Utah the fall of 2011. On the home exchange website, they had listed their chalet as 4 bedrooms 2 baths with a loft area for kids. It sounded great. The problem is they really had 2 very small bathrooms (1 with a tiny shower, and the other with a shower/bath, but the bath was only about 1/3 the size of a normal bathtub), a queen bed in one half of a sitting/office kind of room, a very small living room that had a couch that folds out into a bed, a small kitchen/dining room, and the loft was about 3-4 feet tall with a blow up mattress and 1 small mattress on the floor. I guess we’ll make it work the best we can. I feel like we’ve had fabulous places to stay up to this point, but this is going to push us a little s we weren’t prepared for it to be this small.