It wasn’t long after Dave and I had started dating that I went to his flat in Spain, along with family Bartlett who I met then for the first time. We joke now about a comment his mum made as she watched me taking Dave out in a small sinking sailing dinghy without a life jacket. She quipped, “Dave, this is going to be an adventurous courtship”, referring to our recently formed relationship. Well Mrs Bartlett, you were right, and Switzerland offers many opportunities to pursue adventurous activites.

Our most recent adventures took place in Moleson, a ski resort by winter and an adventure playground in the summer. Yesterday morning we took a bob sled ride. A steep roller-coaster-like track took us to a fairly highish summit from where we plunged down through twist and turns to the bottom. It wasn’t particularly scary but it did make me giggle.

The day before however was slightly more nerve-wracking.

(daveb takes over the keyboard, as it’s Squiffy’s turn to make dinner: Pasta, ‘wegetables’ and sauce. Yum yum.)

We actually just came across Moleson Village on our way to Gruyeres (as in Swiss cheese) because the sign had a picture of a cable car on it and Squiffy got excited. Me? I’ve never much had a head for heights but also don’t like to allow my fears to prevent me from experiences that I think I might enjoy.

The summit is 2002 metres above sea-level. A funicular railway takes you half-way up the base of the mountain and a cable car does the rest. We bought a three-leg ticket thinking that we’d get the transit to the top, eat fondue–naturally–and then walk down from the summit back to the where the cable car meets the funicular and get the train back down to our bus. The packed cable car was actually a lot more relaxed than I had feared, even though there was hardly any room to move. The guy standing right next to me seemed even more nervous than I was, although I soon discovered that he was about to throw himself off the summit in the hope that his paraglider canopy stayed open…

I’m happy to report that as we stepped off the cable car, my knees started to straighten out as I stood back on terra firma. Squiffy’s legs started to go a bit jelly as she saw the path to the summit (and the ‘path’ down to the funicular). As I’ve written before in this country, the photos cannot do the panoramics justice here — you’ll just have to drive here yourself.

Just a little way down from the summit we had our first fondue together, which is basically melted cheese + wine in a pan into which you dip bread on long forks (I couldn’t figure out why they were so long, the forks?!). No less than four helpful people indicated to us that for Squiffy to attempt to walk down the summit path wearing sandals and a skirt was plain foolish, so we decided to get the cable car down to the midway point and walk the rest — which I’m glad about now, as my legs hurt enough from this ‘easy’ descent.

In fairness to SQ for her inappropriate dress, she was under the impression that we were going cheese tasting, not mountaineering!

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