Tues 5th July Horw

 Today we packed up and set off to have lunch with Lea at her place of work in Aarau. She works for the Council in their Town Planning department.  She was waiting for us as we walked up from the car park and we went straight to lunch. Bob and I ordered a local version of a pizza which Lea described as a white pizza. That was a good description but it was tasty. We also had the option of soup or salad as a precursor and Bob was most surprised at the first taste of his tomato soup then he discovered it was a cold soup.

After lunch Lea took us on a walking tour of the Old Town. As with others we have visited it has been beautifully restored and maintained. Lea then took us up to the top of the Council building to show us the "map"  of the town. This is a 3D construction of every building and park in the city  of 20,000 population. It is all done in light wood and dried vegetaion for the forested areas. They then place proposed contruction in the site designated so they have an excellant perspective of how the building will appear in relation to it's neighbours. No high rise can be built higher than 6 stories but we saw a model of a creative implementation of the rule which was two horizontal high rises in which there were adjoining buildings of decreasing height from 6 stories down to one in either direction creating a curved skyline. Altogether it demonstrated  very thoughtful city design.

From there Lea went back to work and we went to the gelati shop but the purchases weren't as extravagent as yesterday. We then mosied through the beautiful Swiss valleys until a stop for Maria's favourite hand made buscuits. These are smaller than a gingernut but twice as hard. Tonight after dinner I had a lesson on how to karati chop them in the palm of my hand into four pieces so I could suck them to death. The trick I decided was to take a quarter of a biscuit and a mouth full of hot chocolate and hold the liquid until the biscuit was soft. Which worked fine if the drink wasn't too hot.

So now we are back in Horw for 4 or 5 days. I cooked Lemon Chicken for dinner which took longer than it ought to cook in an unfamiliar electric oven but which was a success. Tomorrow it is forecast to be clear skies so we are going up Mt. Pilatus which has been tantalizing us every time we look out from the balcony.  It is 2,100 metres or 7,000 ft so the views are sure to be spectacular.