Swiss cheese

Imagine if you will freshly boiled new potatoes straight from the garden, and then a double grill sitting in the middle of the table. Small individual pans for toasting little slabs of special cheese to pour over your potatoes, and tasty morsels to fry on the top of the grill. Meatballs, crispy bacon, pork fillets, and cherry tomatoes. And side dishes of pickles, spices, and salad. That my friends is Swiss Raclette - actually traditionally it's the melted cheese without the meat, but they've introduced the 'party grill' to the dish - delicious, and even better with good friends. Shame we were too busy digging in to take any photos!

Yesterday we explored Bellinzona, a 3 castle town in the foothills of the Swiss Alps. There was even a du stings of snow on some of the peaks in the morning, but it disappeared during the beautifully warm day. The town was having an annual fiesta and there was about 2kms of stalls, pop-up restaurants (selling sausage and beer of course), and bands - brass bands full of young people doing traditional Swiss music, and more contemporary stuff. Unfortunately no yodelling or lederhosen, but a grand day none the less. Lots of families out and about enjoying the stunning autumn day.

We walked up to one of the castles and scaled the ramparts to view the other 2, and the town. The castle was n good repair and it was easy to see where the boiling oil would be tipped down onto the marauding hordes. 

We went the back way to the castle up old stone steps, then in the Castle we climbed up the tower where they house the museum. Montebello castle was built by a prominent family between the 13th to the 15th centuries. It's hard to imagine living in an era where you needed a castle (complete with moat and drawbridge) to survive. 

After we'd 'done' the town, market, and castle, and of course stopped for a beer on the way back to listen to one of the bands, we headed for home on the train. My friends were working and I'd offered to cook the roast lamb for our last nights dinner. Well catching the train provided no problems (except for trying to work the ticket machine in Italian), and then when we arrived in Tenero to catch the bus up the hill it seemed there was no bus for at least 90 mins. It was Sunday, and just like NZ used to be, all the shops are closed and services run on a limited timetable. So more steps to walk up the mountain. Which would have been fine, except we walked up the wrong side of the ravine - we could see the house just the other side of the 40 metre steep sided ravine. So back down again, and more steps up - and it was a warm day! You would think with all this walking we would be thin as, but alas the food is too appealing! And the roast lamb (local, not NZ - which we found everywhere) was divine.