Day 16 – Hike #2 and soaking at Lavey-les-Bains

After our first day of hiking, I figured we’d now be ready for another day of exploring the Alps in the traditional “Eva-style” of hiking: spending half the trip going up, up, up and then the second half making our way back down… Turns out, I didn’t check in with our youngest family member, who wasn’t having any of this “hiking up for 2 hours” business to get the 1500 feet height difference. In fact, he took one good look at the windy, all uphill path and was on his way back to our chalet. Luckily, the older brother was a little less daunted (at least at first) and so we began our short hike (just 4.5 miles – 2 up the hill, 2 down, and another .5 walking around at the top…). The trail Levron-Col due Tron-Col du Lein-Levron allowed us to see past the ridges of our own valley (mostly known for Verbier) into the next valley – where the Rhône flows and where we’d go a few days later to explore Zermatt & the Matterhorn.
The weather in the Alps had been gorgeous, and this day was no exception, so we made it up and down without too much trouble, were rewarded with spectacular views, but ended up being quite thirsty and ready for something more relaxing.

back to Levon

Swiss Alps selfie

Cool creature

Verbier Valley

119B9542-E7F5-48C4-A34C-F50D8DE6377A — The route

NB: As the map shows, presumably this can also be done with snowshoes in winter, though I can think of more fun ways to test my physical endurance….

For the relaxing part of our day, we got into the car and navigated our way to the town of Lavey-les-Bains, which translates as “Awesome French-Swiss Spa extravaganza” town. Three hours of soaking in heated pools (with hourly underwater music for sonic relaxation), getting massaged by various above and underwater jets, waterfalls, and fountains, and sitting in different types/temperature saunas and hammams, we were back to our old selves (and no longer thirsty, but hungry). We finished out our day at the chalet with home-made Spaghetti Carbonara — probably our best one yet, using only the finest ingredients we could find in the Swabian grocery store we had stocked up in before heading to Switzerland. Or maybe it just tasted so good because we were so utterly and completely relaxed.