Our last full day in Tannenboden in the Swiss Alps today!

A few clouds draped around the tops of mountains as we trooped off in our Oak Hall coach, back down the mountain to the valley far below. We’ve noticed a big temperature change from the mountains to the valley floor.

Ritchie our driver, drove us to the little town of Bad Ragaz on the east side of Switzerland. (It doesn’t take long to get to different places.) Here, we had several options to fill our day. Bad Ragaz is renowned as a spa town because nearby (an hour’s walk) there are spring waters – 36.5 degrees warm thermal waters pumping out 8,000 litres a minute. Which interested me, but first I wanted to see Heidi Dorf a village, based on the children’s book Heidi by Johanna Spyri, set in the 1880s in this part of Switzerland. I’ve always loved this book.

Wooden carving of Johanna Spyri

Getting our train tickets from an automatic machine at the station was “interesting”! It’s good practice to navigate a system in another country and language without a clue of what you’re meant to be doing! Fortunately, one of the young men in the group knew German and helped us get our tickets out of the machine in time for the next train. The interesting part of that is that no-one then checked our tickets and there were no machines to endorse them.

We travelled by a fast smooth train to the little town of Maienfeld.

Full of fascinating old buildings, with ripening vineyards pocketed in wherever they could find space.

A steady uphill walk for an hour to Heidi Dorf. I still haven’t seen a gentle or easy hill walk in Switzerland!

I went with low expectations, thinking it would be “tourist tat”. Very hypocritical of me, when I’m the tourist looking for this tourist tat!

But it was like an historical museum. There were half a dozen houses set up to show what life was like in the 1800s in the Swiss Alps.

This house (below) is 300 years old and inside it’s furnished according to the 1800s period.

This would have been like the house that Heidi and her grandfather lived in the village in the winter season, when they brought their goats down from the mountain and Heidi went to school.

A snow sled

The kitchen

A bedroom, with a bed warmer on the bed, and a chamber pot under the bed

Toy cows carved for the children to play with

This house (below) is like the mountain or Alpine house they lived in during the summer season up in the mountains, looking after the goats in the meadows and fields. The goats lived in the right side of the house at night.

Sleeping quarters in the hay loft

A big pot in the kitchen to curdle the milk to make cheeses from the goats’ milk

(Above) Carpenter’s tools for Grandfather – they needed to be self-sufficient

A big building in the village, called the town hall, incorporated the school and the schoolmaster’s living quarters in the town hall. The village school is at the back of the building. I’m standing on the steps of the town hall.

I couldn’t get a photo in the schoolroom – too many tourist children figuring out how to use slates. So, I photographed this picture on the wall, showing what the crowded village schools were like in this period.

I’m definitely a museum relic – when I went to school, we used slates in the younger grades!

We ate our picnic lunch under a big oak tree with a chook for company.

I said Hello to the goats.

Storing the food in the barn.

It was fascinating and we spent longer than we’d originally planned – but very glad we did.

By the time we walked back and took the train from Maienfeld to Bad Ragaz, it was too late to walk to the thermal springs in time. Philip went looking in vain for a good hot chocolate cafe. I sat on a seat and people watched and cloud-watched on the high, nearby mountains till it was time to get back on the coach and head back up the mountain to our chalet at Tannenboden for our last dinner together and our evening meeting.

We’ve had a wonderful time, but we’re both feeling a bit travel weary. Tomorrow morning the coach takes us back to Basel where we have a few hours to explore the city before flying back to Heathrow London to get in late tomorrow night.

This Oak Hall trip of Switzerland has been enriching to us in so many ways. The incredible beauty, majesty and delight of the place, the scenery – the joy of the people we’ve been with – the richness and wide scope of the cultural, spiritual and fun experiences. A huge blessing!

And what a blessing to be glad to be going home again. A lot of people don’t have that either.