Ostschweiz

Switzerland is an odd little place. It takes about two or three hours to get from one edge of the country (say, Basel) to another (Lausanne, Lugano), where it is often completely different. To take advantage of what may have been my last chance for a long time to travel for a couple of days, I headed to the third edge of Switzerland, to Sargans in St. Gallen, to visit my friend Becky.

It's a nice little town not too far from Austria and Liechtenstein, surrounded by mountains and lakes and vinyards. We took an evening stroll up to the castle and enjoyed the views over the borders before wandering back through the old town to Becky's house, where we enjoyed a delicious curry and drank a little too much wine.

However, life in Ostschweiz isn't as peaceful as one might think; the afternoon was punctuated at regular intervals by a chaotic din, coming first from a distance and then from right outside of the house. It was the local herders moving their cows to and from a show. The cacophony was the product of the lowing of the cattle, the hammer of sticks to keep them in line and the rattling of the bells tied around the cows' necks. Perhaps one of the most Swiss things I have seen since coming to Switzerland...