Hello to Switzerland on July 4th

Welcome to Switzerland!
We quickly figured out that Switzerland has an incredible number of tunnels! Some are fairly long...but others are very short. It makes sense. The country is so mountainous, that you'd have to go up and down hill constantly...and in the winter, you could go neither way! So, we go through them, not around!
We stopped along the way to eat a late lunch...

This was our restaurant...
After lunch, off we went again...
Steve was the patriotic American...
Look at this little church perched up there.
At the summit, Bjorn stopped the bus so we could get off and see the snow... well, a few snowball fights started...
Bjorn made quite a few of these hairpin turns...

We finally made it to Scoul..but first, a few of the 900 shots (a slight exaggeration) of the scenery along the way...



In Scoul, our destination in Switzerland, we went to our hostel...a youth hostel. That was a perfect time to take a few photos...


This was taken from right outside the front door of the hostel...our bus is the first one.

Our hostel...
We had a quick orientation and then went on a walk with our guide, Bob...Bob from Canada.
He told us how Europeans in general are much more 'outdoorsy' than the average North American.
We started off walking through the forest...
There were some incredible views of the town...
Oops...Sarah needed to make a stop before we ventured too far in the woods...
We caught up with the rest of our group on the other side of the bridge...a bridge over the Inn River...
Bob told us that trails are marked very clearly throughout Switzerland...actually throughout Europe...
Scoul means "Church on the rock"...

We walked into the old part of Scoul. Bob told us that these houses were built and entire families lived in them...parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles...the extended family...
The doors were large because at night, families would walk their cattle inside. Their heat would rise,helping to heat the home.
Scoul has many fountains around town with incredible drinking water. Here, there were 3...one was more of a bubbly water, but the other two were delicious and pure tasting.
Bob would stop along the way to tell us tidbits of information about Scoul, or Switzerland ...

Can you tell I loved this village? I have spared you the other 316 photos of this church!

I absolutely loved this section of the village...

Today, single families still own the homes. Bob told me that most of the homes have stayed in the families...have been in the same family for generations...

One last close up...