Day 35, the Alpstein

Here come some fun pictures. We wanted to hit the Alpstein, which is the mountain area around Appenzell. Not the most common place to find other Americans but very popular by locals. I visited this area often in my childhood. After fighting the whole way up and suffering soreness consequences some days ago in a different part of Switzerland, we decided to take the tram up instead. We'd still have to walk down from there and wanted to pass the Seealpsee which then would still qualify this as a hike. Right? So it's in my hike category. Parking lot is breathtaking already. Next stop: gondola to Ebenalp.

And so we are ready for the hike down.

In the cave they found traces of Paleolithic Neanderthals and over 900 remains of cave bears. They were huge.

Now they just use the cool cave for their restaurant storage

The cave church was already established in the 16th Century. The Swiss must have been a very tough people since it is a long ways up from the bottom without gondolas.

This Restaurant is not nearly as old as the chapel but still an impressive 170 years old

Unlike my kids, they all wanted to be in the picture...

A little fresh cow pie rock skipping

And here it is. The Säntis... Grass freshly fertilized with recycled cow poop. Smells heavenly once your sense of smell has been numbed to where you have none left. 

They have cute eyes

Loggins sneaked a picture in on my camera

The water was so clear

These two stood like that so the other cow's tail could whip off all the pesty flies

But no worries. You can count on talon to aid in fly removal

Love all the moss

Little spring water near then end...

I miss all those "Trainierte Gangster" license plates with the two lions on them.