Draft a post with three parts, each unrelated to the other, but create a common thread between them by including the same item — an object, a symbol, a place — in each part.
The walk all began with a long ascending path.
“No problem” were the wise words of Mr. Swiss. He had done it before lots of times and so it probably was no problem for him. This was my first venture to the castle after a Winter of content sitting at home in the afternoon, letting him loose alone on his migratory wanderings to unknown places, and writing a daily prompt. Times change, it is now warmer weather and time to get my limbs moving again. We had been building up the walking experience, at least I had, by straight flat paths along the river, to the cemetery and visiting the horses at the nearby stables. Now we were on the advanced stage of the hiking mode, we were visiting the castle.
There was a preliminary discussion “Are you ready for this one. It is a long way and do you really want to take the path on the right afterwards. It has a steep descent.”
I mean we were not conquering Mount Everest, just visiting the local castle. A little background: some guy built this around the middle of the 18th century as the Summer palace for the French Ambassador who was always in the State of Solothurn. Today he no longer lives here, but in Bern, with all the other diplomats, and so the castle is used for weddings, exhibitions, food and all the trimmings, and of course for the tourists and people that need to take a walk. And so we began the climb to the castle.
And we arrived, although not together, Mr. Swiss got there first. On the way I was taking a few photographs. There was a tractor, some crows and of course fields to be shown another time. It is surrounded by farming land. As you can see it is a pretty castle, perched on the hill. I always though those castles were built on hills to see the attacking armies, but we had no attacking armies in Solothurn, just tourists. It is not far from where we live. We cross the main road and are already on the upward path. Although the road/path is empty certain inhabitants of our village, including us, have a special label on our front car window to show that we are amongst the chosen few that are allowed to drive their car up the path. I would also mention there are three very handy benches on the left in front of the castle for those people, like me, that need to rest after the long walk upwards. However on this particular walk we were attacking the path at the right of the castle with a steep descent. We carried on regardless.
We conquered the path with the steep descent, although Mr. Swiss found a useful tree stump to sit on just before the steep descent. As I had now become a fully professional hiker, I did not need this tree stump. I already had my eye on a bench at the bottom of the steep descent, so I carried on walking, taking photos on the way. I could now see the castle from the other side. In the meanwhile Mr. Swiss had caught up with my swift steps and was also sitting on the bench next to me.
We walked on to take a closer photo of the other side of the castle. As you can see on this photo, there is a grass mound on the right side. No-one really knows what this is, but it has always been there in the village. Is it perhaps a burial ground for the extinct Helvetians who were the founders of the Swiss nation? Perhaps it is the secret vaults of the Swiss National Bank where they keep the gold reserves? It might be the entrance to a tunnel leading to the lower part of the village. Rumour has it that the leaders of the village at the time decided to build this mound, cover it with grass and leave it for a few years. One day no-one would not know why the mound was there or what the purpose was, and perhaps someone would write a blog about it.
And just to round up this three photo blog, here is a fourth photo of me on the bench at the bottom of the descent. Note I am wearing a different t-shirt, not that you get the impression that I possess only one t-shirt. At the moment I am in the process of ordering a new t-shirt with my www site address on it. There are untold possibilities of attracting more viewers for my Angloswiss web site with such a t-shirt. Perhaps a scout from the Pulitzer or Nobel prize groups will see my t-shirt, read my site and I will at last receive my well deserved prize. Now where did I put the tape measure?
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It certainly is a lovely place for a walk. If it were local to me, I'd be doing this walk often.
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