This time around we took the sightseeing approach rather than actually hike up or down. I wanted to see snow in anticipation for this seasons skiing, so.......we went looking for it.....oh....and we found it! Season opens October 25th!!!!!

We took a train Saturday morning to aigle. When we left the house in Geneva, you could hardly see anything because it was so foggy. Luckily we escaped it when we arrived in aigle and we were welcomed with another perfect sunny day. Once in Aigle, we took a break to have a tea and coffee in the village as we waited for our bus ride into the mountains. As usual, we had no idea where we were going and it was only by luck that we didn't miss our bus. I guess it is obvious that we are tourists! The bus ride was great, just a few too many winding turns....blehhh

Once off the bus, onto another train that took us to the village of les Diablorets. Les Diablorets is an Alpine Glacier which is also of course a ski center. We took the biggest gondola I have ever seen from the base all the way to the top...some odd 3000 meters high. SNOW....lots and lots of glorious SNOW! The views were perfect, Der Matterhorn, Jungfrau, WeissHorn, Mont Blanc, the Eiger...all perfectly visible and all capped with snow!

We had lunch at the top and relaxed in the lounge chairs and enjoyed the sun! Aline has a very distinct list of priorities...there needs to be sun and it needs to be warm....we had bolth so needless to say we stayed there for a while.

After some well deserved relaxation, we set off to explore the mountain. We walked around in the snow and went to see the exposed part of the glacier. It was really cool because along the way there were open crevaces right beside where we were walking. aline o course needed a close up view. I gave moral support from a safe distance. Lectures on the dangers of crevaces insued afterwards. Now Aline is scared of them...moahahaha.

The glacier was impressive, you could hear the water flowing from underneath it and you could see the think ice which was exposed.

After a long day on the mountain, we made our way down with the gondola and prepared to head home. This time we weren't so lucky with our on the fly decision making skills. We took the bus in the opposite direction to where we were supposed to go. This was evident when everyone on the bus spoke Swiss german! We ended up in Gstaad, on the opposite side of the mountains. It was great though because neither of has been there before and it was a really nice ski village. Very ...uh...upper class. Then we had no choice but to take the panoramic express back because it was the only train available going in the direction we needed. Slowest train in the world! It is a sightseeing train that goes through the whole range of the Alps. It was the longest train ride ever, but at the same time it was nice because there was of course some amazing seenery. We were lucky because we got a view of the sun set that we would never have seen had we not been on that train!