Today we took the cable car and then the ski lift up to Col de Balme, a very green, grassy, hilly area further up the valley. A col is the saddle of a mountain. There were cows with huge cow bells where we hopped on the cable car, further up we saw a mare and her colt. There are flowers everywhere, but we don't think we saw any edelweiss - plenty of white flowers but they didn't look like the botanical drawings on the back of our map... none the less, Cathleen had a hard time not singing any tune from the Sound of Music -- the opening scene of that movie,where Maria sings "the hills are alive" is EXACTLY what the Col de Balme looks like. We hiked up the col, crossing into Switzerland and
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