Innovation on Earth

Five Senses in the Alps

Since you aren’t up in the Alps Mountains with me, I thought I’d share a bit about each of the five senses so you can get a feel for what it’s like here.

SOUNDS ~ While hiking in the mountains here, we hear these cow bells all over across the hills. Someone told us that cow bells are a status symbol for farmers here, and sometimes cost $2,000 a piece — but owning cows is very difficult to actually turn into profit.

SIGHTS ~ There are so many beautiful sights. Photos don’t do these mountains justice, but here are a few that might give you a taste. Don’t let these photos fool you — the weather hasn’t been perfect this whole time. We tried to go up to the top of a mountain to see the view, and ended up in a cloud. We’ll try again tomorrow, but here’s what we saw at the top so far:It’s a cloud. Eventually, we got some nice views from the Cable Car, once we got out of the cloud:

SMELLS ~ Ah, the flowers! I have really enjoyed stopping to smell the wildflowers in the mountains. So many colors and varieties!

The village of Allmendhubel is famous for its flowers, and they even have a flower playground and flower walk, where you can learn about all the types of flowers you’ll see while hiking. This little garden had an exhibit with a wooden platform to lie on, inviting visitors to lay down to smell the flowers. Who am I to refuse?!

And then I tried out the playground too… it was an extra good one.

TASTE ~ We’ve been eating lots of cheese, served every day with bread at breakfast. We also had fondue the other night (the dipping bread into melted cheese kind), along with the traditional bratworst sausage and rösti, a kind of potato fritter. Mmmmm…

FEEL ~ We visited a waterfall that was inside of a mountain! It felt very… wet! Here’s the evidence:

This was a neat experience, but as you can see, it was pretty touristy. Even better was the next day, when we were hiking and came upon a sign we didn’t understand. We used Google Translate, and saw the word “caution” but decided to proceed down the trail very slowly anyway. It was very steep, and in the woods. Eventually we were rewarded with a beautiful waterfall. I was very careful, but we figured out that it was safe to walk underneath and through to the other side, which was pretty amazing!

Can you see me on the other side after I made it through?

So, there’s a little taste of the Alps (and sounds, sights, smell, and feel)! I hope you got a little bit of a sense of what it’s like here.