On Sunday Marie-Helen took me to the second castle, Montebello. It's a little smaller than the first one but still super cool. After that, the Kellers invited some friends over for dinner and we had a massive barbeque of buffalo. It tasted the same as beef to me and was quite tasty. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of my day.
Shortly after this picture was taken, we went over to the neighbor's cherry tree and picked another huge crateful of cherries. The neighbor is this oldish man and he was wearing a straw hat and it was a rather good time. These are about as fresh and delicious as you're going to get.
Marie-Helen and I went on another adventure to the second castle. One of the things that amazes me about Bellinzona is that there are evergreen trees and palm trees living side by side. It blows my mind. This is a view of the clock tower in the center of town, featured in some of my earlier pictures, I believe. (sorry about the telephone wires. they annoy me too)
There were doors with house numbers on the stairs up to the castle so I can only assume that people live there. What a crazy amazing place to live!
Another door. I like doors. There's a great sense of possibility in doors. Perhaps not this one as much as others, but the potential is still there.
A steep set of stairs leading up the castle. The picture doesn't show it, but the stairs are the original ones with the uneven stones and all that jazz. According to Marie-Helen, lots of people go up to the castle for wedding pictures and stuff and the women have a hard time in their spiky heels. I could see why.
Che bello!!
That tree is an olive tree. There were some blooms but no olives. Apparently they don't grow as good here as in Italy and Spain cause it's not as warm. Given the temperatures here of late, I find that hard to believe.
A view of the first castle from the second. That castle used to be the whole town of Bellinzona, as it was a walled city. It's grown a little since then.
Everywhere you look are these mountains. Not a bad view. Also I really enjoyed the fact that this family was having an enjoyable picnic in the shadow of a castle built before 1313.
This is cute
I'm coming for you, third castle, just you wait...
This is a roof. By my standards, it's a very cool roof.
Not sure what this contraption is. If anyone knows, feel free to let me know.
Those are vineyards. Apparently they are good grapes for wine because it is so warm here.
Fun fact: you can drink out of any fountain in Switzerland unless it's marked not to. All the water is fresh spring water from the mountains.
We were talking about how great it is that vineyards were planted here instead of a bunch of housing developments. Not that the houses here aren't lovely, but I think the vineyards more capture the original essence of the castle
This is all the original path
I had to use flash for this picture and right after I took it, a little puff of steam came out of some hole in the top of my camera and smelled suspiciously burnt. (It's not even that great of a picture boo) I was worried it was going to explode or something and I haven't taken a picture with flash since. It's fine with regular pictures, thankfully.
This is the wall that once divided the valley. It was pretty much unpassable as it was well built and heavily defended.
Every Saturday night, there are movies played in outdoor theaters in all the castles.
At this point you're probably sick of picture of castles and doors. Sorry bout that.
Also I was at the store and I got really excited cause I saw this and wondered what milkshake chocolate would taste like and I figured Hey I'm in Switzerland! Why not? (I have a tendency to speed read and I'm afraid I rather sped read over the caffe latte part. Whoops) You may imagine my surprise when I bit into it and discovered it was coffee flavored. It's still rather tasty, however because it isn't tainted with too much coffee flavor
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