Bourques in Barcelona: October 2015

Backing up a few weeks, I travelled to Denver on October 7th for ten days with the family. Pat joined us on Friday evening at a friend's condo in Vail, where we spent the weekend. It was sunny and clear, although the best of the yellow aspens was over, unfortunately. We walked, took Audie to the dog park and Graham to the playground and just relaxed!

Cute idea for Adirondack chairs for all your used skis!

Family pics ready for Christmas 2015:

Who knew that John Deere also made bikes?!?

And at the end of the afternoon, a visit to Marble Slab ice cream shop:

On Monday everyone went back to work, Pat flew to LA for meetings and I held the fort with Graham and Audie. We walked each day exploring the neighbourhood:

Checked out the many pumpkins in the Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch:

And played in the house:

At aged 18 months, Graham is a sweet little boy, loves his books, playing ball with Audie in the backyard and is learning more new words everyday: airplane, bus, car, "guck" (truck), bye bye, Papa (Grandpa), Dada and Mama. Once again, I seem to be "no name" Grandma! Ah well, he was a joy to spend the week with!

Back with more later!

Location:Denver, Colorado plus a weekend in Vail

Hello everyone! We are back in Spain for two months this fall, renting another house in our favourite village, Caldes d'Estrac, north of Barcelona. During our first week here, Pat had a business trip to Geneva, so I tagged along and spent a lovely day with my long-time friend, Cathy, her two daughters and two young grandchildren, in Clarmont, near Morges. It was a perfect fall week of sunshine, warm afternoon temperatures and beautiful colours through the vineyards and trees.

On Friday afternoon, October 23rd, we took an afternoon train along Lac Léman towards the Valais, changing in Visp for the mountain railway to Zermatt. We stayed two nights in Hotel Firefly with a lovely view over the surrounding mountains. These pictures were taken from our balcony:

Breakfast was brought to our room at the chosen time-love the egg warmer!

After breakfast we wandered through the village, lots of tourists, only electric cars/taxis permitted to drive the local roads.

Here is our first glimpse of the famous Matterhorn:

The Rhône River starts from the glaciers above and flows swiftly through the village on the Lac Léman, Geneva and south to the Mediterranean.

The front façade of our Hotel Firefly:

The Matterhorn appeared more clearly as the day wore on:

We spent some time in the local cemetery, one section of which is dedicated to the many mountaineers who lost their lives on the mountains, most at a young age.

We packed a picnic lunch and took the cable car up to the top of the Matterhorn Glacier to check out the view and watch the skiers, 100 CHF return (about $100 CAD each!).

It was cold and quite windy from the terrace of the restaurant and not being properly dressed for the occasion, we didn't stay long! We went down on the cable car to Schwarzee and walked from there to Furi, about three hours. We then got back on the cable car to Zermatt and treated ourselves to a lovely massage in our hotel!

Here you can see where several glaciers have carved troughs in the mountains, as well as how much they have melted in recent years. However, they still provide much of the hydro power in the area.

For much of the way the trail looked like this, some snow/ice underfoot and often quite muddy. It serves also as a road for vehicles doing maintenance work.