We’ll do that very British thing and talk about the weather first… Here in N. E. Switzerland, the start of the school summer holidays in the second week of July often heralds the start of a couple of weeks of rainy weather too. Well I remember one summer when my boys were small and it rained Every. Single. Day. Not this year. The first week of the holidays provided wall-to-wall sunshine and (too) hot weather, and people were crowding into museums to get away from the heat and not the rain.
Trees are good for a bit of shade and coolness, and recently I saw some lovely ones when I was on a wine-tasting trip at a local vineyard one evening with some friends. Below you have typical Canton Thurgau scenery with the Alpstein range in the background, plus one of several linden/lime trees round about (they smelled heavenly too), and some of the vines.
We sampled five wines (I was glad I wasn’t driving) and saw round the storage facility (nice and cool). It was lovely.
St Gallen is another place where it’s easy(ish) to keep cool in mid-30s temperatures. The old town is full of narrow streets and passageways, so lots of shade. And I don’t know if they have air-conditioning in the cathedral, but they do have cool air. Those monks knew what they were doing, back in the day.
For most of this month, our lovely lake was its usual sunny self – until the day we had a ‘tornado’. This kind only occur over water, so no danger, unless maybe you’re in the wrong place in a canoe. (Photo credit Son 1)
And if all else fails, do what I do and sit in permanent shade somewhere with your fan and a book. The background photo below is only a few minutes from my home – wish the Lakeside Hotel really was there, too!
Happy reading!
(And if anyone wants to see more pics of our tornado, have a look HERE.)
