Thursday 13 October 2011

First Snow

No - don't panic! The first snow I've just seen was on the mountains in Champery, Switzerland, where I met up with friends and aspiring romance writers for a weekend. I arrived in Geneva on Thursday and as the plane descended I saw very clearly Jet d'Eau - Geneva's Fountain, but was totally unprepared and didn't have a camera at the ready. On Friday, once we were all together we journeyed around Lake Geneva towards the chalet in the mountains.
Saturday turned out to be a wet affair, but that didn't dampen our spirits as we headed up the mountain on the hourly train to see Arrive du troupeau de moutons, which is the local farmers bringing their sheep down from the mountains to lower ground for the winter. One thing I really liked was the sound of the cow bells, which could be heard almost everywhere. Even some of the sheep wore them!
After the sheep experience we began back down the mountain heading towards a thermal spa, where we spent the afternoon outside in lovely warm water, as rain fell on us and snow covered the mountain peaks.
On Sunday, the mountains looked totally different as the sun shone, so before the weather closed in again we went for a walk among the chalets. Some of them several hundred years old.
This final photo is of Lake Geneva and the snow covered mountains, which made me feel quite cold.