REALLY feeling my legs today…yikes! Liz! What are you doing to me?? :P Fortunately Friday morning Liz was on domestic duty & had cleaning & food prep to do around the chalet until around 1:00PM, so I had "the morning off" :P However, she very kindly organized for me to go along with another group that were heading up the mountain to a place called Santa Croce (pronounced Santa "Crochet") to do some watercolour painting. You needed absolutely no experience, all the materials were provided & you have the perfect view to work with!

So I took two different cable cars high up the mountain & waited for the rest of the group to arrive while sitting in the sun in front of a small white chapel reading my book. Eventually Hannah (the painting organizer) turned up with just one other guest - it was a very small group! It was actually kind of ideal because the other lady who came up with Hannah was clearly already a painting pro & was happy to go off & work on our own, so I pretty much got a private crash course introduction to watercolour painting! Hannah is an illustrator & went to uni to study fine arts so she's very talented & was a great guide to how to get started. We first sketched out the landscape (with the sky, mountains, church, & the grass) then painted each layer in, fading it from top to bottom, waiting for each section to dry before painting on the next. In the end I produced a piece that was by no means a masterpiece, but I was quite proud of it nonetheless! :)

After completing my first piece of watercolour art work (which will no doubt be worth millions one day :P) I headed back down the mountain to meet Liz for the afternoon's adventures. I stopped by the chalet for a cup of tea, then we headed out to do some more via ferrata. Unfortunately the one that we had planned on doing was super busy & there was no way we'd have time to get up & down past all the people in time for Liz to get back for her evening duties. So instead we climbed the first part of another via ferrata, where we were the only ones on the rock face!

We didn't climb all that high (comparative to how high a lot of the other climbs though…some as high as 800m!!!), but it was still well & truly enough to get my heart racing & remind me that yes, yes I am still afraid of heights! :P But I managed to push well beyond my comfort zone & get at least 50 metres up the rock face before it started to rain, the rocks got a bit slippery, I lost my nerve, & we decided to turn back. Unfortunately, as always, going down was even harder than going up, but Liz went ahead of me & was a great help; super patient & always helping me to work out where I needed to put my feet or grab on with my hands. Made it down in one piece & again, as with the painting, though I may be no master mountaineer I was still pretty proud of what I'd managed to achieve :)

In the evening Rainer prepared yet another fantastic three course meal for the staff & guests, including a particularly noteworthy desert. It was THE BEST apple strudel I have ever had. Ever. In my entire life. The secret ingredient: pine nuts! Apparently that's what a true, original strudel should have in it, & although I've never tried it like that before I now absolutely agree; no strudel should be without pine nuts! ;)