Thursday

We woke up to low clouds and light rain but decided to head out prepared for a hike anyway. We went back to the tourist office, this time Martin came in and we got much better advice - huh!

We decided to drive to a high level reservoir and do one of three possible hikes. We had to pay a toll and received a leaflet which was in german but stated that something was happening today - I couldn't translate it with my app though. As we drove on the winding road we suddenly saw this massive dam;

According to Martin it is a 'gravity arch' design.

To our delight we discovered that today was the first day of the season so the road had just opened and there were guided tours of the dam! Whilst we waited for the tour we had a coffee in the cafe and the owners announced that we were their first customers of the season. We had a good chat and learnt about their lives including getting the kids to school 25 km away on the winding road by 7.30am.

The tour was great, there were a german couple and us and the guide said everything twice once in german and once in English.

We then hiked up the valley hoping to eat our lunch in Italy - the border was 2 hours away. It was a beautiful walk with waterfalls cascading down both sides of the valley. After about an hour and a half there was more and more snow which made the going a bit difficult and in the end we stopped when we saw the last part of the path was all snow. It was a shame not making it to Italy.

We walked back taking loads of photos.