Life as we know it...: Glaciers & Castles

Today we left the area that we were staying near Zermatt to head towards the Ticino area, which is the southernmost canton in Switzerland. It is named after the Ticino river, and the sole official language here is Italian. I was just starting to learn some German, and now we are practically in Italy.

On our way to Ticino, we had to go through 2 different mountain passes. On the way we had to pass by the glacier that I mentioned the other day, called the Rohnegletcher. This glacier is located between the Grimsel Pass and the Furka Pass, so it is easily accessible by the main highway, and has been observed since the 19th century. It has lost 130 meters during the last 120 years, as depicted in the pictures from this wikipedia article: Rhone Glacier . We were able to walk through a part of the glacier via a 100 meter tunnel that is hammered into the ice. It was very cold, but awesome! The tunnel took you into the glacier and back out. It is hard to tell how thick the ice and snow really is until you get that close.

After touring the glacier, we continued our drive to Ticino. When we got to the area we checked into our room, which is in an old convent. The convent portion of the building was built in 1608, and the part we are staying in, which is an old school turned into a hostel, was built in 1895. It is quite charming, with gardens full of fruit trees and plants. We have a nice room with a balcony, which J and I are sitting on as I am writing this, watching a rain storm come over the mountains.

After checking into our convent : ) we made our way to the capital of Ticino; a city called Bellinzona. It is considerably warmer in this area of the country, around 90 degrees today, and looks much more Mediterranean that the areas we have been in thus far. We are only around 50 miles from Italy (which is where we will be on the weekend!). The look of all of the buildings is very different, and the people definitely have more of a style. We parked the car, and made our way through a main plaza area which is close to 3 castles in the area. After walking around the shopping areas, where I saw a "2 Francs" store (equivalent to the dollar store in America I think!), we decided to check out the Castello Grande.

A little info from Wikipedia about the Castello Grande:
"The site of the Castelgrande has been fortified since at least the late 1st century BC and until the 13th century it was the only fortification in Bellinzona. During its history the castle has been known as the stronghold (before the 13th century), the Old Castle in the 14–15th Centuries, Un Castle after 1506 and Saint Michael's Castle from 1818."

It was very cool, with big open grassy areas, which some Italian folk were using as a sunbathing area. We walked around for quite a while and got some great pictures, and some exercise in from climbing many stairs up into some of the towers. We also decided to visit another of the three castles, called Castello di Montebello, which was up on a hill, and was built before 1313. After we spent some time exploring and taking pictures, we decided that we were ready for dinner.

We drove through Bellinzona, but decided to go have dinner back in Faido where we are staying. We had some Lasagna, Ravioli and Caprese Salad at an Italian restaurant in town before going to the Coop grocery store for some ice cream, which we ate out on the balcony at the convent. We are in for the night, and will be going to the Valle Verzasca tomorrow to do some swimming! Here are some of our pictures from today!