Judy and I had planned, given the forecast, to hike Sunday to Tuesday, then take Wednesday off to recover. The forecast for late in the week was not good, so when we woke up on Wednesday to excellent weather we deided to do a fourth hike in a row. On Thursday we obviously were too tired to hike; I went to Sion for business while Judy spent hours dealing with the
S L O W laundry system.
On Friday the weather was not good; total cloud cover, rain and rather cool. Since we had an unlimited pass (3 days out of seven) for the central Valais we decided to go to Martigny to the Fondation Giannada. I had somehow never visited it during my many trips to the Valais, but had obviously heard about it.
We left by the 8 AM Postbus from St-Luc. The visibility was a very few feet, but the driver obviously knew the road perfectly and had no problems getting us to Vissoie. From there the visibility improved; the road was clear though
there were no views into the valley. We changed to the train in Sierre, and got to Martigny a bit after 9 AM. A local bus got us to within a few hundred feet of the Fondation. We both bought senior tickets (60+) and got a CHF 2.00 discount for our Central Valais Pass, CHF 16.00 per person.
First we went round the Greco-Roman section, labels on the exhibits were only in French and German so I had to translate; quite a challenge. The challenge, interestingly enough, was with both languages; I know what a
massue that a warrior statuette was carrying is, but completely forgot at the time the English word "club"
.
We then went to the famous sculpture garden. The total experience of the garden (wonderful botanical collection) plus the sculptures was immensely satisfying. In the garden we found the Leonardo da Vinci Inventor exhibition; fascinating. To my amazement I got out of the gift shop with no more damage than a CHF 20 collection of postcards; somehow I resisted buying any of the wonderful CHF 99 scarves
.
Back in the garden at around lunchtime. We were opposite the
buvette and lines were beginning to form. We took an
assiete valaisanne and a toamto and mozarella plate, plus a few more
decis of
Fendant than we should have.
Back in the main building we parted. Judy visited the Nicolas de Staël exhibition, while I visited the car museum. Each of us enjoyed what we saw.
We then walked to the Roman amphitheater, and then meandered slowly to the station.
The bus ride back to Vissoie was interesting for two reasons. First off, shortly after we started climbing, the bus pulled over to let a car pass us. The car's driver informed our bus driver that one of the bicycles had fallen off the bus some distance below. The guilty owner was identified, and walked back, found the bicycle, and slowly pedaled it back to the bus. I suspect that never again in his life will he fasten a bicycle to a bus loosely
.
We also had reasonably good views of the steep valley and even more visibly steep lateral valleys, and of the vertical cliffs that seemed to be everywhere. Lots of devices to catch falling rocks, though one fell on our bus. We also saw the bridge near Niouc from which bungy jumpers jump.
Tomorrow we both go to Evolène; I by bus, Judy by bus to the Barrage de Moiry then over the Col de Torrent to Evolène, maybe attempting to summit Sassenaire along the way.
Lots of photos that need to be organized, uploaded, and incorporated into my blog. Stay tuned.
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