Up early, we left our campsite driving towards Spain. After a couple of hours the landscape began to change a lot. First we noticed foothills, then valleys, and soon after the outline of mountains in the horizon. When we reached the mountains we were amazed by how lush with vegetation they were. In the distance we noticed a few mountains that were bare with snowy peaks. Red shale type rock, similar to what I've seen in Arizona, was also part of the landscape. We drove towards a village called Arén. A good friend of Tim's mom, Anneke, has a holiday home there and generously offered to have us stay with her for two nights. Because of recent flooding we took a small detour. The road was wide enough for one and a half cars. Tim carefully navigated through the switchbacks. The kids loved the views, I made sure not to look, I knew I would be a basket case if I did. After the detour we drove through a 7km tunnel, and then through 13 short tunnels, which brought us to the village of Arén.

Anneke's holiday home was originally a pie shaped barn. Her daughter Maaike set up a tent to live in, inside the barn, and renovated it into a home. Her daughter kept the barn's original stone walls and log beam ceilings. She added white stucco to many walls bringing light to the house. In some places tongue in groove wood planks cover the ceiling, and in other rooms the ceiling is white stucco with exposed log beams. The entire house is two stories but they divided off a third of the house to use as a rental unit. Currently a school teacher is renting it, and since she was away on holidays we were able to use her part of the house as well. Maaike is a talented artist and she added lovely mosaic embellishments throughout the house. The kitchen has garden doors stepping onto a tile patio with a stone wall looking down about 8 feet to the garden and street below. From the patio we could see barn roofs, mountains and meadows. The kids' favorite part of the house is upstairs. In the room that Tim and I stayed in there appeared to be a wardrobe, but when the kids opened it, it was actually a door to the rest of the house. First the art room, next a door leading downstairs to a kitchen, bathroom,and doors to outside. Upstairs, past the the door to downstairs, there is a bedroom with two single beds that the boys stayed in. I was surprised that they didn't mind the fact of no power on that side of the house. At night they had flashlights for light, but they loved their room. They called it Narnia because of entering through a closet. What a great place!

Anneka had fresh baked fruit cobble and tea ready for us. After eating she was eager to show us around her village.

Aside from a few people here and there, the streets appeared abandoned. It seemed that our family was doubling the population, but actually they have a 100 people that live in the village. We walked through alleys of stone, at one point we ended up in the main square and saw 6 people gathered for happy hour - not much of a crowd. Aside from the sound of birds the village was quiet.

We followed Anneke up paths until we reached the top of a mountain where medieval ruins sit. In places rectangles of rock were cut out showing impressions of ancient graves. A church use to stand on this mountain. A large stone arch still remains. Looking around we could see mountains and patchwork meadows. The kids noticed a large flock of sheep in one of the meadows across the valley. We could see they were making their way down the slope. Anneke suggested going back to see them come through town. It was a 25 minute walk back, and after a drink of tea we heard bells.

We stood on the side of street across from the barn. Sheep herding dogs barked from their cages. After a few minutes the sound of bells got louder and a mass of sheep rounded a corner towards us. Mixed in with the sheep were goats. The herd moved forward between stone walls in our direction. The shepherd made a stop to talk with someone, and we were surprised to see him make one motion and whistle causing the entire herd to stop. A few minutes later he started walking and the sheep continued. At one point along the road their was a break in the wall with steps, some of the sheep would go up a couple steps and jump off the stone wall back onto the road. It took at least 5 minutes for the entire herd (hundreds) to file through the street into the barns.

We were spoiled by a beautiful dinner that Anneke made for us.

At bedtime the girls were nervous being in such a different environment. We kept them with us until they were just about asleep and then moved them to their room, only a few steps from ours.