Heidi Trail.

Last Friday was a holiday as it was Swiss National day and even though the weather was a bit iffy, we decided to get out of the house anyway and headed to Bad Ragaz to explore the Heidi Trail. We parked our car at the cable car station and took the cable car up to Pardiel. It started to rain a bit but soon the sun came out and all was well. At the ticket office, the girls got a Heidi passport and they have to find Peter's goats at each of the 12 stations and get a stamp on their paper and all the 12 stamps make a word (which I won't tell since it would ruin the surprise of future adventure seekers who might be reading this! ) Then they can post this on the Heidi post box and wait to see if they win any prizes! So the girls were thrilled with the whole thing. And instead of us motivating them to walk, it was them who were dragging us all the way! It takes around 2 to 3 hours to finish the whole trail since there are play areas on the way, fake goats to milk, hammocks to laze on, zip lines and swings with views to kill, water falls, bird houses, Heidi story boards and last but not least, so many photo oppurtunites! :) 

The trail was a bit uphill for about 10 minutes which the kids did nt mind but my knees sure did! The views were so amazing that the kids got very impatient with me that I was standing and staring. At one point, they went ahead of us, found the next goat, got the stamp and ran back to us because they just could nt wait! It all started as Team Antu and Team Ashu with me in Antus team and Hd in Ashus. But towards the end, it was the kids against us! :) I had packed some sandwiches to eat on the way. And then after the hike, we went to the restaurant near the cable car station and treated ourselves to ice cream and a fantastic apricot cake with fresh fruits and cream. Yum! The kids played in the play area nearby and around 5 pm, took the cable car back, posted the passports at the Heidi post box and headed home. A great alpine experience for the kids!