Saturday (July 3), we tentatively decided to go to the wine area down the Rhone, along the so-called “Roesti Line” (the border between French- and German-speaking Switzerland—and French- and German-eating Switzerland, since presumably only German-speakers eat roesti (“Swiss hash browns,” as the English-language restaurant menus put it)). But the lady who runs the guesthouse, almost by herself, suggested going to Saas Fee (a mountain resort), instead, while Lonely Planet enthused about Leuk. The idea of taking a two-hour walk through the vineyards, between Sierre and Salgesh, seemed less and less fun—we were tired out from our other hikes, and it was clearly going to be a real scorcher. So, on the train, as Leuk came along, we impulsively got out, although Mary Joy had told the conductor, in German, that we were staying on to Sierre. It turned out that he was French-speaking, from Lausanne, and of course preferred wine from that region to the local wines. Mary Joy then switched to French with him.
A digression. Mary Joy has been handling things very well in three different languages: German, French and Italian, with occasional stabs at Swiss German dialect. Even her English was passable (occasionally, back in the U.S., people ask what country she’s from—she enunciates much better than the average American, so some people assume that she’s a foreigner).
We got off at Leuk and walked up the hill to the old town. Just below was the Ringanker Church, a beautiful late-seventeenth-century baroque chapel. When Mary Joy saw the organ up in the choir loft, her jaw dropped. It was a small, clearly old, baroque organ that had been beautifully repainted and restored, The sacristan was setting up for a wedding, but when Mary Joy asked her about the organ, she smiled, got the key and opened the door to the choir loft. We went up the narrow, winding staircase and emerged by the organ, which Mary Joy enthusiastically inspected, asking me to take pictures of the stops. When we got back down, Mary Joy explained to the sacristan that she was an organist. The sacristan laughed and replied that that had been obvious.
We went up to the old town, which was full of medieval alleyways and buildings.
The 13th-century bishop’s castle had been renovated, oddly enough, by the well-known modern Swiss architect Mario Botta, who had stuck a big glass egg on the top. We enjoyed wandering around the town very much, but since we had decided to go to Saas Fee, we needed to catch the train back to Visp, partway to Brig.
A digression. Mary Joy has been handling things very well in three different languages: German, French and Italian, with occasional stabs at Swiss German dialect. Even her English was passable (occasionally, back in the U.S., people ask what country she’s from—she enunciates much better than the average American, so some people assume that she’s a foreigner).
We got off at Leuk and walked up the hill to the old town. Just below was the Ringanker Church, a beautiful late-seventeenth-century baroque chapel. When Mary Joy saw the organ up in the choir loft, her jaw dropped. It was a small, clearly old, baroque organ that had been beautifully repainted and restored, The sacristan was setting up for a wedding, but when Mary Joy asked her about the organ, she smiled, got the key and opened the door to the choir loft. We went up the narrow, winding staircase and emerged by the organ, which Mary Joy enthusiastically inspected, asking me to take pictures of the stops. When we got back down, Mary Joy explained to the sacristan that she was an organist. The sacristan laughed and replied that that had been obvious.
We went up to the old town, which was full of medieval alleyways and buildings.
The 13th-century bishop’s castle had been renovated, oddly enough, by the well-known modern Swiss architect Mario Botta, who had stuck a big glass egg on the top. We enjoyed wandering around the town very much, but since we had decided to go to Saas Fee, we needed to catch the train back to Visp, partway to Brig. I'm falling behind in my posts, but I should be able to catch up by doing my writing on the plane to the U.S., tomorrow.
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