Marmots, snow and cereal: Spielboden and Allalin

Another day, another, well, you know.  But this time it wasn't just a mountain and a glacier (although they were there too of course), the day began with....marmots!

Saas Fee: Saas Grund's much more touristy car-free resort town sister village

At Spielboden, ready to go marmot spotting

Compulsory playground and glacier shot.  This was about the extent of the playground.

After trudging around with complaining kids and no marmots, this well-fed individual perched himself on a rock near the restaurant and waited for tourists to feed him.

And they did.

With some time to spare we decided we'd be disappointed if we didn't try to get up to the Allalin that we'd been looking at for days from the chalet.  So after some lunch in Saas Fee we made a mad dash to get up to the top before everything closed.  A gondola trip and a ride on the world's highest underground funicular railway got us to Mittelallalin (3456 m), home of the world's highest revolving restaurant.

Underground funicular

Allalinhorn

This is the only place in Switzerland that offers midsummer skiing

The kids had a great time playing in the snow, this being the first time they'd seen the real stuff.  That excitement level was only exceeded when the gondola operator gave them a small box of cereal (?!?) each when we got back to Saas Fee, which had to be OPENED AND EATEN IMMEDIATELY.