Heidi hike with the expat group

On Saturday morning we left on the 7:42 tram to meet the expat group at the train station for a hike in the canton of Graubünden. It is the largest canton of CH, located in the southeast near Liechtenstein, Austria and Italy. We took the train to Sargans and then another train to Maienfeld for the start of a 13K hike through the legendary homestead of Heidi and Peter (from the book Heidi by Johanna Spyri). It was a beautiful day and the hike took us by vineyards, through some woods with wild strawberries, and across several meadows with grazing calves and cows. Maienfeld is very close to the borders of both Liechtenstein and Austria.

We went with about 20 people from the expats-in-Zürich group. The people in the group which has about 2000 members are from all over the world but live in the Zürich area. There is a woman who organizes weekly hikes in Switzerland and posts them on the site for anyone to join. This hike seemed like the perfect one to go on for its difficulty level and location. It was very interesting to meet the hikers who were from Australia, Denmark, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, North Carolina, California, France, Hong Kong, and Switzerland.

We hiked up to the HeidiAlp hut (where you see a series of photos taken by Elisabet), ate lunch in the meadow looking out over the valley and the Alps surrounding us. Then we hiked down past Peter's haus, to Heidi's haus where the kids petted the goats, we ate an ice cream snack and then hiked to a restaurant where we sat and enjoyed drinks and a light dinner with a couple members of the group, Maja, Uwe, and Richard. We still had a 30 min hike down to the train station in Maienfeld and made it just in time for the 7:08 train back to Sargans and then Zürich. The town of Maienfeld was beautiful with picturesque Swiss chalets, gardens and vineyards. The train ride from Sargans to Zürich passes by one of our favorite lakes in Switzerland, the Wallensee. We arrived at our apartment at 9 pm, sweaty, dirty, and very tired!