As it was a stay-at-home holiday I decided to discover someof the nearby sights. This time we drove to the village of Altreu which is situated on the river Aare. The village is spread out a bit and is quite a focus for tourists. There is, of course, the usual riverside restaurant to enjoy a cool drink and a good meal - fish of course. When we arrived there were two coaches just leaving full of elderly ladies and men who had probably just enjoyed a days trip.
There is a caravan site just next to the restaurant, the caravans generally being owned by locals who like to spend the Summer week-ends in the sun on the banks of the river. I walked down to the rivers edge and took some photos of the local wild life.
The main interest when visiting Altreu are the storks. Many years ago a teacher at the high school, Hr. Bloesch, introduced storks to the region. He built up a stork sanctuary and although he died a few years ago his work is carried on. He was a biology teacher at my hubby's school and was still at the school when my older kids were there. He is a bit of a local hero and books have been written on his work and life. I remember when the kids were small we would go for a visit on Sundays to see the storks. There were stork nests and the little storks were really sweet.
This photo was not taken by me, but I borrowed it. Unforunately there were only 3-4 baby storks that survived this year due to the wet weather that we had. Actually the stork sanctuary has been changed a bit. When we used to visit the storks were kept in the sanctuary and they were always there. Today they are given more freedom and during the day you are lucky to see one. Most of them are on the fields and they even come as far as we live. They are often seen to be sitting on the lamp posts on the main road or on a local roof. However, their nests are maintained at the sanctuary, but no longer artificial, they have been put into the trees.
However, I was lucky and did find a stork sitting on its nest that it had made on one of the roofs of the nearbye buildings.
They are really fascinating birds and have no influence whatsoever on the population of Altreu. The baby boom is not bigger than anywhere else in this area.
Before leaving I had one last look at the surrounding scenery. The Jura mountains are to be seen forming a ridge in our Kanton of Solothurn, so here is one last photo.
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